Any time people go to the store to buy something, they have to make decisions. They have to think about which product is the “best.” But what one person thinks is best might not be the same for another person. Why?
For example, what if you wanted to buy a new television? (See figure 1-2.) What would be most important to you? Some people think the size is the most important thing. The bigger, the better! Other people are more concerned with money. They want the least expensive television. Some people want a high-quality picture. The best-looking picture is best! Other people want a lot of features. They want a television that they can hook up to video games, e-mail, the Internet, and movie sites.
In this Engage activity, What Would You Buy?, you will think about how you would make a decision about buying a product. You will think about what might be important to other consumers. Then you will decide what property is most important to you. Materials
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Look at the display of paper towels that your teacher has set up. In your technology notebook, describe which brand you would buy and why. Hint
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With your team, brainstorm a list of reasons why a person might choose one brand over another. Write all your reasons in your technology notebook. Hint
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Look over your list from Step 2. By yourself, choose the reason or property that would be most important to you if you were buying paper towels. Using a different-colored pen or pencil, write a large “1” next to that property. Hint
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Choose the second and third most important properties from your list. Write a “2” and a “3” next to each. Use a different-colored pen or pencil.
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Compare your top three properties with your teammates’ lists. Explain why you made the choices you made.
Activity Overview
In the Engage activity, What Would You Buy?, students will brainstorm about why a person might choose one brand of paper towels over another brand. They then will rank their choices and compare their lists with teammates’ lists.
Before You Teach
Background Information
Two important concepts in the design of products are design criteria and design constraints. Determining the criteria and identifying the constraints help people make decisions about the design of a product.
Determining the criteria is the first step in designing a product. The criteria are a set of goals for the product. A good product is one that meets most, if not all, of the criteria that manufacturers have set. Designers usually establish criteria that will make the product the best it can be, or at least better than the competition’s product. For example, a criterion for a watch might be “keeps reliable time.” A criterion for pots and pans might be “distributes heat evenly.” In a list of criteria, we sometimes see words or phrases with qualifiers such as “most” or “least,” or words with the suffix “-est,” such as “largest” or “easiest.” It helps to have students think about quantifiable measurements in terms of criteria. For example, if a criterion is described as the “best” cleaner, how could it be quantified? On the other hand, if the criterion is described as the cleaner that requires the fewest number of strokes to remove dirt, it is more easily measured.
The second step in designing a product is identifying the constraints. Constraints are limits that affect the decisions we make to achieve the criteria. Human factors are one type of constraint that engineers consider when designing a product. Some examples of using human factors as constraints include considering the average space between the eyes when designing binoculars, the average size of a hand when designing a computer mouse, or the average width of a foot when designing bike pedals. Human factors may also include ideas, such as the attractiveness of a product or the ease of use, because if these factors are not met, then the product will not sell.
Constraints other than human factors include time, money, and materials. Examples include the timeline within which the developers of the atomic bomb worked, the money allotted to NASA for designing a space shuttle, or the materials available in the African deserts with which people can build shelters.
Designers consider both criteria and constraints when making decisions about the design of a product. In designing a new car, one of the criteria might be that it “performs well in safety tests.” Constraints might be the availability of materials and cost. For example, there may be a material that would make the car safer than any material currently used in car designs, but that material might not be available in sufficient quantities to make a large number of cars. Also, the material might be so expensive that the designer cannot use it. Other criteria and constraints lead to decisions about the shape, size, performance, and color of the car.
Materials
For the entire class:
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4 to 5 different brands of paper towels, set up as a display
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pens or pencils of different colors
Advance Preparation
Buy several (at least 5) brands of paper towels. For at least 3 of the rolls, choose brands that are represented in the table in figure 1-4 of the student edition. In this activity, students will look only at a display of the paper towels, so only 1 roll of each brand is needed. In the Explore activity, they will test the paper towels. In that activity, it is suggested that you have 1 roll of each brand for each class section that you teach. You may want to go ahead and purchase all the paper towels that you need for that activity as well.
Before starting this Engage activity, set out 1 roll of each brand in an area where students can easily see them. The rolls do not need to be unwrapped, but if you choose to unwrap them, be sure to put a label on or near them so students know which brands are represented.
As You Teach
Outcomes and Indicators of Success
By the end of this activity, students will
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become interested in how people decide which products to buy.
They will show their interest by
- creating a list of properties that people might use when deciding on a product to buy
- ranking the properties according to their own choices
- comparing their lists with those of their teammates.
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apply their knowledge of technology to a product.
They will show their knowledge by describing why paper towels fit the definition of technology.
Strategies
Getting Started
Begin the chapter by going over the chapter organizer with students. Read the key ideas and linking questions with them. Ask which activity sounds most interesting to them. Read the introduction to the Engage activity. Make sure students understand the different reasons that people might have for choosing to buy a television and that different people value different properties. For example, one person might want the biggest television possible but does not care much about picture quality. Another person might want a very sharp picture but does not mind having a smaller television.
Process and Procedure
Make sure you have 1 roll of each brand of paper towel displayed in the room. The rolls do not need to be unwrapped, but if you choose to unwrap them, be sure to put a label on or near the towels so students know which brands are represented. Remind students of the hint so that they set up their technology notebooks for a new activity. They should write the date and activity title on a new page. They should also add the activity to the table of contents. Then have students write down which brand of paper towels they would choose to buy and why. Some students may complain that they need to be able to touch the paper towels or see how absorbent they are. If this issue comes up, remind them that when they are in a store to buy paper towels, they generally are only allowed to look at the wrapped rolls and must decide based on what they see.
Have students work in teams of 3 to brainstorm reasons why a person might buy a particular brand of paper towel. Encourage them to think of as many reasons as possible. They are not limited to what they can see in a wrapped roll, so you might prompt them with ideas like cost, softness, or absorbency. The hint will help with this. The hint also asks students to practice the teamwork skill of seeing other people’s points of view. You may need to explain what a point of view is. The hint gives suggestions about how students might practice the skill. You may add other suggestions if you have classroom rules that fit with the skill.
Have students choose the property that is most important to them. They should work individually to choose the top property. Have them use a different-colored pen or pencil to write a “1” next to the top choice. The different color will help the ranking stand out in their technology notebooks. Be sure students read the hint so they know that their rankings do not have to match their teammates’ rankings.
Students should continue ranking the second and third most important properties. Again, this is an individual choice.
Allow students time to compare their lists with the lists their teammates made. Tell them not to change any answers. Their discussions should focus on why they made the choices they did. They should also consider why their teammates made the choices they did, as part of seeing other people’s points of view.