Check out the student work submitted for real-world industry feedback! Learn more about submitting student work to receive real-world feedback here!

Grade: Middle School

PLTW Course: Design & Modeling

Submission type: Activity: Therapeutic Toy

Project overview:

Select student submission materials:

Link to full project: click here

Select Judge Feedback: “Hello, I work for CRISPR Therapeutics where I manage highly collaborative and complex projects. I have a background in Physics and engineering and I’m looking forward to providing input on your work.

This team did a good job of sketching the design as evidenced by the multiple angles with annotations of key materials. Additionally, I think the prototype was thoughtfully constructed as evidenced by the attention real life detail. I also liked how well this group described their design and collaboration process. It sounds like they had a thoughtful discussion and used each others feedback to make their idea better. However, I think the design sketch could use additional details such as the explanations for key design elements. For example, the team mentions the weight of the pancake, spatula, and frying pan, it would be helpful to highlight why you made this choice in your design sketch.

Similarly, I work with teams that take a similar approach to problem solving – (1) define the problem, (2) brainstorm approached, (3) sketch multiple solutions (4) debate pros and cons of each approach, (5) select 1-2 to move forward with. This type of methodical problem solving will help you no matter what career you choose from engineering, to biology, to business administration. The ability to break down a problem to it’s simplest form and debate the merits of every approach is something I started learning in middle school and I continue to use every day.

Great job! I hope you all had fun and continue pursuing your interests in science and engineering.”

-Program Manager, CRISPR Therapeutics

“I work at Google as Senior AI Engineer.

There are several things I liked about your project:
1) The presentation video is amazing, you demonstrated great level of communication and collaboration in the team :)
2) The level of attention to details is very high. I really liked how you captured the main ideas and were able to build from these ideas.

There is just 1 thing I would improve on:
1) You probably want to have more details in your report, other than that I think your work is great!

Now, let me answer the industry questions:
1) “What do you think could improve this project to ensure that the end user is required to flex their wrist while using this toy?” – Maybe have some electronic counter on how many times a day a person flexes their wrist. And then have some kind of reward for doing some number of flexes/week.
2) “If you had a similar challenge (developing a toy to strengthen wrist extension) what would you do differently?” – it is very hard question, because you actually did everything perfectly. One small thing to improve – is to have a more detailed report. You draw very good sketches already, just some more details in the sketch description can be better.
3) “How did you come to select the profession you are in?” – I liked a lot computers and programming and ended up becoming a Software Engineer at first. After some years I was pulled in AI and became AI Engineer, which I greatly enjoy.

Thank you very much for such a great effort and keep going! :)”

-Senior Applied AI Engineer, Google

Industry Award: Gateway Award

School: Leicester Middle School

Teacher: Craig Therrien