Students in the honors engineering design and photoshop class recently started a design challenge scenario project with pinhole cameras. Students worked in pairs and were given six weeks to compete their design.
“We have been doing this project for [the past] five years, and this is one of seven different design challenges [we do] during the year to help students to learn the engineering design process,” engineering teacher Duane Walton said. “[My favorite part of this project is] when the kids realize that they can make a working camera from a shoe.”
Students were given full creative freedom of how to design their “camera” for the project. Most students used small things like shoeboxes and paint cans as the casing of their “camera”.
My favorite part about the project are the ideas you can come up with. [Senior] Luke Lang and I were able to come up with the idea of making the camera out of a backpack. — Senior John Nilson
“[This challenge] is original and challenging,” senior John Nilson said. “My favorite part about the project is the ideas you can come up with. [Senior] Luke Lang and I were able to come up with the idea of making the camera out of a backpack. I feel that the project really teaches us how to work together to come up with ideas together.”
Students were instructed to record their photos onto 4×5 inch black and white film paper and to take a photo of a ten feet by ten feet square area from a distance of five to 20 feet.
“A few weeks ago we got a project that required us to build a camera for people with limited dexterity,” senior Allie Anderson said. “I’ve enjoyed learning about the design process and how to build things that meet different requirements than usual.”
