Secondary project briefs (ages 11+)

Bronze Awards are typically completed by students aged 11+. They complete a ten-hour project which is a perfect introduction to STEM project work. Over the course of the project, teams of students design their own investigation, record their findings, and reflect on their learnings. This process gives students a taste of what it is like to be a scientist or engineer in the real-world.

Silver Awards are typically completed by students aged 14+ over thirty hours. Project work at Silver level is designed to stretch your students and enrich their STEM studies. Students direct the project, determining the project’s aim and how they will achieve it. They carry out the project, record and analyse their results and reflect on the project and their learnings. All Silver projects are assessed by CREST assessors via our online platform.

Gold Awards are typically completed by students aged 16+ over seventy hours. Students’ projects are self-directed, longer term and immerse them in real research. At this level, we recommend students work with a mentor from their chosen STEM field of study. All Gold projects are assessed by CREST assessors via our online platform. There are more CREST approved resources that have been developed by our partners and providers specific to your region.

There are more CREST approved resources that have been developed by our partners and providers specific to your region.

Find out how to build practical CREST projects into secondary science lessons using our free teacher guidance pack. Supporting this guidance are easy-to-use, free-to-download mapping workbooks, which match individual Bronze, Silver and Gold CREST Award projects with each area of the secondary science curricula for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. You can download and save your own copy of the relevant mapping workbook via the following links:

To browse the briefs, click the buttons below or scroll down.

Bronze Silver Gold Partner resources

crestaward

Views

6 years ago

Flag

Design a game controller

Use ergonomics to design a game controller. This resource is published under an Attribution - non-commercial - no derivatives 4.0 International creative commons licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). For more information visit our Terms and Conditions (www.crestawards.org/terms-and-conditions).

Click to edit project

Click to edit project description

Page 1 of 2 Design a game controller There are loads of different games consoles on the market – and even more controllers for them. In this project, you need to research all the various types of controllers available and set about designing your own. You’re not expected to be able to design and make the electronic circuitry to make them work, but you can make a scale model of your design. Getting Started First, choose a console that your controller will be for. This way, you can find out things like how many buttons your controller will need. Find out about ‘ergonomics’ and how it has been used to design console control layout. Designing your own: Design your own ultimate console control layout. Sketch lots of different ideas and think about your target audience to see which they prefer. Whittle your ideas down to two or three of the most popular. Create some detailed engineering drawings of these showing all the exact dimensions and colours etc. Modelling your design: Use different modelling techniques to create a model of your design. If you’re making a bespoke controller you should work closely with the person it’s designed for - this might be yourself, which is nice and easy! You should make sure the controller fits their hands perfectly. Perhaps you could ask them to loosely grip a piece of clay. This will give you the perfect shape. Things to think about You could use the results of your market research to try to design a controller for a specific group of people, for example, one that fits the preferences of boys aged 11- 14, or for girls aged 18-24, etc. Or you could make a bespoke controller, one that’s designed specifically for one person – perhaps someone with a disability? Useful Resources Have a look on the internet and in shops at all the different games console controllers and compare the different layouts. Carry out some market research. Ask as many people as you can which sorts of controller they prefer. You could use pictures of different controllers to see which one’s people prefer the look of. Click to edit project description