Interim Presentation

The main point of feedback was that the booklet that I will have to design as part of the kit will be the main focus point of the user experience of the project. To this I was advised to look at children-book-illustrators, signage and instruction booklets to gain insights into how those booklets convey their 'message' to the reader.

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I will now start to look at educational children's books and instruction manuals on how to best convey the tasks for the educational groups to complete. I will also cross reference the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence to make sure that my tasks meet the required standards for the age range of the children involved in the projects.

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Feedback by Andrew Cook and Polly Duplock:

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Feedback Areas of strength (process, people, design, technology)

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Your focus on knives as tools in education for young people feels really strong. Removing the stigma associated with knives and bringing in the dimension of the outdoors and the health and welling of young people seems very relevant. The project also feels like it is about accepting and managing some element of risk.

 

It’s good to bring your passion and understanding of knives into your project. Use this to your advantage but also make sure you stay objective as you make decisions.

 

Good to see the results of your survey and how they informed some of the direction of your project, such as focusing on the age group if 11-16.

 

Good to have spoken to Fraser, with his understanding of outdoor education and how this helped you to move onto looking at the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence and the psychological development of children through outdoor learning.

 

I like the way you have started to bring your ideas together and the concept of the kit that is developing with the new knife design, the book, the sharpening stone, oiling kit and bits of wood to practice on. The idea of the expansion tasks in the book that relate to maths etc. also sounds good.

 

Great to see that you have designed and built a knife from scratch in your home. I’m sure this gave you some really interesting insights- well done.

 

Areas for improvement

 

You mentioned having some discussions with Andrew about UX design. Follow this up in Semester 2.

 

Your idea of developing some relationships with knife manufactures sounded really promising. If there is an opportunity to do a collaboration with a knife manufacturer that would be great.

 

The book that comes with the knife feels like it is at the centre of the experience, make sure you also do a good job of this part of the project.

 

Think carefully about how you are going to tackle the graphic illustration in the project. Mock-up a few different pages to try different directions before settling on the final graphic language.

 

Your blog/instagram

 

It is great to see how thorough your process is documented on your website. Is it possible to make it a bit easier to both scan (highlights of info) and navigate (click throughs from one page to the next)?

 

Advice to carry forward

 

You have been working really hard on your project Elliot, which is great to see. It is great to see how you have developed the people side as well as the more technical knife design/build. As you move forward make sure you keep both of these aspects firmly in your work.