1. Design and Technology

2. Requirements for the Major Design Project
Major Design Project (60 marks) The Major Design Project consists of an individual product, system or environment, and a folio. The folio documents the proposal, the project management, the development and realisation, and the project evaluation. The Major Design Project includes the practical hands-on activity of carrying the project through to realisation and the documentation, in a design folio, of all the steps involved in this process.

3. Purpose of Folio
The purpose of the folio is to document the project proposal, management, development, realisation and evaluation of the Major Design Project. Students need to select appropriate samples of work that reflect the processes they have followed and that provide information showing how they have met the Major Design Project examination criteria.

4. Folio Parameters
The folio will be limited to 80 written A4 pages OR 40 written A3 pages printed on ONE side only. Note that the page limit includes the title page, index, bibliography, design ideas, concept sketches and detailed drawings, as well as information presented on displays or noticeboards. Students who need to use a combination of A3 and A4 pages in their folios to display their work to best effect must keep to the overall page limit, using 1 × A3 page = 2 × A4 pages as a guide. Other media-based or multimedia-based materials in a student’s folio should not exceed six minutes viewing time in total.

5. Ways of Reducing a Folio to meet Requirements
Think about which parts of research best relate to the project and then present findings in a clear and concise way.
Simply highlighting sections of pages printed directly from the internet is not a recommended method of presenting research.
The marking guidelines for the Design and Technology Major Design Project refer to ‘appropriate research, experimentation and design solution testing’.
Always make sure an appropriate referencing system and bibliography are used.

6. Project Size
The physical size of the Major Design Project needs to be carefully considered. Teachers and students should be mindful of:
• the cost of materials
• the complexity and physical size of projects.
High marks are regularly achieved by students who have projects that are of modest cost, use minimal materials and do not require an excessive student time commitment.

7. Paper Based Projects
If the project is entirely on paper, it still consists of two parts:
a folio, which must meet the folio parameters, and
a product, which may be presented in a folder or as a collection of drawings for display. There is no size restriction on the product itself.

8. Photograph Sizing
Photographs included in the folio should be large enough for the markers to clearly see the intended features. Photographs should measure at least 80 mm x 50 mm to ensure clarity.
Scans of sketches may be included and it is not necessary to attach the originals. It is appropriate to resize sketches to fit onto an A4 or A3 page.

9. Thumbnail Sketches
You can probably guess that thumbnail sketches are groups of little drawings. The purpose of thumbnail sketches is to get lots of ideas on paper in a very short amount of time. It’s basically a way to visually brainstorm where you don’t obsess and tweak but instead rough out a large number of possibilities. They’re a lot like wireframes in form, just smaller and quicker. It’s often the case that designers will create several thumbnails, then choose a few of the best to turn into wireframes.

10. How It Works
To start the process, grab a pencil and draw several, small empty boxes .
From here, you simply let the ideas flow. This is not a practice for honing your drawing skills, instead your focus should be on idea generation. Thumbnail sketching is quick and perhaps even somewhat sloppy. Use basic shapes and don’t spend too long on a single image, as soon as you can get a feel for what that basic layout idea might look like, move along.

11. Why Is This a Good Thing?
What possible benefits could you reap from pages of small, hastily drawn sketches? You’d be surprised. As designers, we far too easily get a case of tunnel vision. We sit down at our computers and create the first thing that pops into our heads and proceed to a point of almost finished quality.
With thumbnail sketching, you really stretch your brain and force yourself into real creative thought by producing as many different variations as possible. With this method you have the unique benefit of standing back and looking at everything you can think to do and making an intelligent decision about which ideas are worth pursuing further.
Save Time in the Long Run
Some of you are probably thinking that you already have enough initial steps to perform on day one of a design job and don’t need to add anything else! This is a valid point, but if done right, thumbnail sketching can actually improve your timeline rather than wreck it.

12. Not Just for Layouts
Typically, I speak of thumbnail sketches in terms of generating layout ideas, but the practice is beneficial in any type of design. For instance, logo creation is likely a place where you do this without even thinking about it.
Sitting down with a pencil and sketching out a million ideas seems like a very natural first step in logo generation, so why not apply this same technique to just about everything you design?
Just remember the key at this step is quantity over quality. Just make sure that you remember that your goal is to get all of those ideas out of your head and onto paper.

13. Prototypes, Models and Testing Items
Depending on the type of project, prototypes, models and/or results of testing the project or its component parts may be submitted in addition to the folio parameters above.
These should be relevant to the project and students will need to indicate their purpose and provide clear evidence of further action as a result of prototypes, models and/or testing. Simple labelling of these items is not included within the folio page limit.

14. Graphics and Multimedia-based Projects
Graphics projects that are paper based, eg architectural drawings, magazines, posters or comic books, or multimedia based, eg web pages or animations, are not included in this page limit as these are the products, not the project folios.
Q. Can a folio or part of a folio be presented electronically?
Yes. If a part of the project can be described better using a multimedia tool rather than on paper, some or all of the following may be included:
a short video, 6 mins max
hyperlinks, as a single layer, to a description of a technology that will inform markers
links to other websites or URLs only where a direct reference is appropriate.
Note that a paper-based ‘back-up’ should be available in case the technology does not work on the day of marking, for example in the case of a blackout or computer failure.

15. Multimedia Folio’s
This time limit does not apply to a multimedia product; however it is strongly recommended that a multimedia product does not extend beyond around 10 minutes.
In many cases, the skills demonstrated in the first 10 minutes are sufficient for marking and longer presentations are unnecessary.
Any hyperlinks included will be counted as part of the six minutes maximum viewing time.

16. Journal, Diary or Internet Blog
Students are requested to have their journals or diaries (if one has been kept) available in the rare case that a marker wishes to see further evidence of authenticity.
Journals or diaries are important to help keep track of progress on the project or production difficulties. Some of this information is relevant to the examination criteria and should be included in the folio.
If all or parts of a journal, diary or blog are included in the folio, they will be included in the page parameters.

17. Outsourcing
Students will be required to certify that the Major Design Project is their own original work, and that any material drawn from other sources and any outside assistance is acknowledged. Group projects are not permitted.
On occasions it may be necessary for some minor aspect of the Major Design Project to be undertaken by some other person or agency. In such cases, the contribution of the outside agent/organisation must be documented in the design folio. Students will not be given credit for actual work completed by others. Justification for, and of, such work will be recognised in the marking process.

18. Certification Principals and teachers are required to certify that:
work on the major project was done under a teacher’s supervision
the work is consistent with drafts and other samples of the student’s work
the work was completed by the due date.
If markers require more information, they can request to see the supervising teacher’s record of the student’s progress.

19. Home Based Projects Consider the following:
Projects will only be marked away from school sites in exceptional circumstances and only with the express permission of the Board of Studies before the project is started during the first term of the course.
Schools must be confident that effective supervision and sufficient documentation of this work is possible before giving consent for students to begin work on their Major Design Project.

20. Major Design Project examination criteria
Components
Criteria
Marks
Project proposal and management
• identification and exploration of the need
• areas of investigation
• criteria to evaluate success
• action, time and finance plans and their application 15
Project development and realisation
• evidence of creativity – ideas generation, degree of difference and exploration of existing ideas
• consideration of design factors relevant to the Major Design Project
• appropriate research and experimentation of materials, tools, techniques and testing of design solutions
• application of conclusions
• identification and justification of ideas and resources used
• use of communication and presentation techniques
• evidence and application of practical skills to produce a quality project 35
Evaluation
• record and application of evaluation procedures throughout the design project
• analysis and evaluation of functional and aesthetic aspects of design
• final evaluation with respect to the project's impact on the individual, society and the environment
• relationship of the final product, system or environment to the project proposal 10
Total 60

21. You Tube Links
(Managing the MDP 30min)
(Product design rendering 6min)
(Design thinking- How it works 5min)
(How to Sketch like a Product Designer: Top Tips to improve your Drawing 2min)
(Design Thinking: Training Yourself to Be More Creative 52min)
(How To Write A Winning Project Proposal 8min)