Y8 Are Designing a Brighter Future
7th February 23
In Design Technology, Y8 have been creating exciting and innovative designs to encourage children under the age of 5 to use their asthma spacers. The design challenge is part of a competition organised by the University of Cambridge called Designing Our Tomorrow.
According to the National Review of Asthma Deaths (NRAD) “almost all the asthma deaths in school-aged children are preventable” (source: Why asthma still kills | RCP London).
Taking a spacer can be a difficult and traumatic experience for many young children. Y8’s design challenge was to turn what could be a stressful experience for parents and children into a positive one.
Elena worked on improving the experience by creating a system that rewards a child for taking a spacer. Every week a child carries their spacer with them, they earn a toy ghost from the “ghostie family.”
Students came up with loads of incredible design solutions to encourage children to carry their spacer around with. Some of our favourites included getting children to keep their spacers in a crocheted octopus bag, fabric pizza pouch, and rucksack designed with animal characters.
DT teacher Miranda told us that the design challenge has focused less on practical skills and more on developing students’ ability to “step into someone else’s shoes and design with empathy” and consider the needs of lots of different clients in a single product, including the nurse, the child, the mother, and the grandmother.
