"The House that Dan Built", Connected, Level 2 - Wild Discoveries, November 2019

14 November 2019

In 2018, Daniel, a student at Nelson Central School, entered a competition to design an eco-house using the computer game Minecraft.

This article describes the thought processes Daniel went through as he weighed up different options to create his winning design.

You can find the article and the teaching notes here:

The best materials for architectural models – Architects draw and make digital models to describe and test their ideas. They also use many different materials to make physical models.
Primary playground redesign – a rich local curriculum opportunity – Waitaki Valley students designed and modelled a playground redesign and presented it to their board of trustees.
Top scholar DVC: A train station – Christopher Dirks, a top scholar in design and visual communication, designed and modelled a new train station for the suburb of Meadowbank in Auckland.

These could be class discussions with teacher guidance.

What type of functional modelling did Daniel use for his eco-house?
What was he able to evaluate in terms of the design concepts (the attributes) for the eco-house using this form of modelling?
What other forms of technological modelling have the Waitaki students and Christopher Dirks used in their projects?
What other forms of technological modelling do architects use?
What information about the design concepts do these other forms of technological modelling provide?

Component	Indicator	Level
Outcome development and evaluation	describe potential outcomes through drawing, models, and/or verbally evaluate potential outcomes in terms of identified attributes to select the outcome to produce.	2
Technological modelling	describe the sorts of things that functional modelling can be used for in technology identify the design concept being tested in particular functional models	2
Technological area	Progress outcome
Designing and developing digital outcomes	PO 1: In authentic contexts and taking account of end-users, students participate in teacher-led activities to develop, manipulate, store, retrieve, and share digital content in order to meet technological challenges. In doing so, they identify digital devices and their purposes and understand that humans make them. They know how to use some applications, they can identify the inputs and outputs of a system, and they understand that digital devices store content, which can be retrieved later.

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