STEM Education in Botswana: Girls Getting Geeky

Building the Emergency Shelter Prototype

Defining the need: The purpose of this session was to design an emergency shelter prototype.

Emergency Shelter Prototype: During this session, the participants focused on strengthening their understanding of the design process by focusing on the brainstorming and design steps. The participants discovered which architectural shapes (triangles, squares etc.) make the strongest building blocks. Participants were tasked with designing an Emergency Shelter prototype. A prototype is a quick and simple model that lets engineers and inventors test whether their ideas work.

“We think this will be a strong shelter because we have used a triangle shape and added a base”

Emergency Shelter Life-Size Challenge This session focused on the participants’ ability to take a prototype, visualize and build a life-size version. Participants worked as one group to build a life-size emergency shelter using different methodologies. Participants used their prototypes as a guide to model and plan the construction of their life-size emergency shelter. During the session participants’ understanding of the importance of building a prototype became increasingly obvious and they were pleased in the time invested during the prototype phase. Their understanding of the strongest structural shapes was also heightened as they undertook building the emergency shelter. Participants then tested the design by seeing how many of them could fit inside the shelter. They also noticed the strength of their walls and made adjustments / corrections to their design (using additional tape to strengthen walls and close gaps

• Designing and Building Prototype (PDF)