About

In a world of design where creating Human-centered products for making processes efficient to boost corporate profits is what everyone is concerned, Chalk Piece is a group of people trying to break out this never-ending convention by using design as a tool for solving Social problems.

If Design can solve complex Business problems, then Design can also be used to prepare the world to battle with the problems of pollution, education, inequality, and climate change by providing a more sustainable approach.

As a SDG ambassador for Chalkpiece and a member of chalkpiece internal team Chalklab I was given the responsiblity of designing creative activities for kids so that we can teach the teenagers about different concepts of design through these activities.

The Biomimicry Design Process

Biomimicry is a fascinating and novel topic of study for younger students.The problem was that how design a activity for kids that is easy to understand for them so that they easily grasp the concept of biomimicry.

After a little bit of brainstorming I discovered the concept of Biomimicry Taxonomy. The Biomimicry Taxonomy is a classification system to organize biological content .

The Taxonomy categorizes the different ways that organisms and natural systems meet functional challenges.I did not considered making activities for Biomimicry Natural Designs as my teammate has already made actiivities covering nature.

To teach the children about taxonomy I designed various presentations which I presented to my mentor Ramya after which she finalised the one.To teach the children about classification I divided the classification activity it into various steps .

Step-1 Who here has a pet? What type of pet do you have?
Step-2 Let's group these animals into different categories.
Step-3 After a few minutes, have the groups share their categories with the class. Example categories: big animals vs. small animals, animals that live inside vs. outside, etc.)

Engineering Connection

Many types of engineers are directly involved with animals. Environmental engineers who work with chemical spills or habitat restoration need to know which animals might be affected by their efforts.

Through the ages, people have been inspired by animals and plants in the natural world. Biomimicry examples include the development of antibiotics and healing drugs, as well as the design of underwater sea vessels, airplanes, boats.

Why would an engineer care about animals?

Engineers work with animals in many different ways. Some engineers study specific animals in great detail and then imitate them to design a technology for use by humans.

For example, chemical engineers look at sharks and how they defend themselves from bacteria in the ocean to create new antibiotics to keep humans healthy.

Environmental engineers want to protect animal homes for all kinds of animals, from fish to elephants. They might be involved in environment and resource management, and design technologies to help restore a habitat that was destroyed by natural or human caused disasters.

They might work on an environment that has been wrecked by a flood or tornado, or a river that was polluted by a factory. It is important that engineers learn as much as possible about the animals they are working to protect. They must know what types of food each animal in that environment eats as well as its interaction with other animals and its ecosystem.

One way that engineers study how animals interact in an ecosystem is by creating a model of it. A biodome is a model that is designed to represent a particular environment and the community of organisms that live there.

Reflection:

It was really difficult try to design activities for the teenagers that they would be able to understand as we did not want to make something complex .

When working in a team. it is easily possible to get lost in different ideas. With this project, I learned that no idea is perfect until it's tried and tested. To concluded any discussion, always map back to the user needs and make sure we as designers are not lost in between.

See my other projects for Chalkpiece