Understanding fibres and fabrics

Catering for needs

Core design skills

Textiles technology and sustainability

Future food and the application of science

Packaging pop-outs

Pet tech

Chilled ready meals

Para-triathlete design challenge

Design in the natural world

Future tech now!

Design & Technology

Y9 Design & Technology

Key Stage 3

Year 9

UNIT

In this lesson, we will look at how our lives have changed because of technology and what the future may hold.

How has technology changed to meet the demands of the consumer?

In this lesson, we will focus on some of the new advances in technology that are changing the way we live and work.

What new technologies are being developed that are changing the way we live and work?

In this lesson, we will take a look at some of the products in a house that you could not do without, and consider what life might be like without microcontrollers.

Could you cope without microcontrollers in your life?

﻿Hello, I'm Mr Donnelly and this is the third lesson in a unit of four all about technology of the future and the big question that I have for you today is can you cope without microcontrollers in your life? Now you may think, of course I can cope without a microcontroller in my life, and if you think that, maybe it's because you are slightly unaware of what one is and you will have heard of a microprocessor, no doubt, lots of people talk about those when discussing computers, but microcontrollers are something slightly different, very exciting, but you'll find out all about them in the lesson and I hope that you think you can get through a day without one. There are three things in this lesson that I'd like you to be able to do. The first one is understand what a microcontroller is. The second is to be able to spot the type of electronic products that might contain them. Then the last one, I'd like to do this as we run through the lesson, I'd like you to be able to consider what life might be like without them. As always, you're going to need some paper and a pen or pencil to write with. If you've not got those things, pause the video, go and get them, then hurry back and we'll crack on. This lesson contains really subjects specific terminology and it's important to understand from the start. So I've said that the lesson is about microcontrollers, yet the first word I'm going to flag up is microprocessor. It's important to know the difference. A microprocessor is one of the main parts on a computer that alters it's performance. It's brilliant but it needs other things to go with it, such as memory and a hard drive and things like a graphics card also. So if you're building a computer, you need to buy all these parts to make your computer work, then a computer can perform multi tasks at the same time. Microcontroller, this one here, this is a BBC micro:bit, you might have seen them at school, that's a little mini computer and it's got a processor and memory all on board and you can even connect to different inputs and outputs and you can programme them to do simple individual tasks. The last term is RAM and ROM. So RAM is Random Access Memory, that's like the computers short term memory and it allows it to switch between applications at high speed. So the more RAM you have, the faster you can have your computer running and it will appear like a higher performance machine. So if you want to upgrade the speed of your computer to buy a stick of RAM, that's the term, you buy a stick of RAM and you may replace it within the motherboard of your computer. ROM, stands for Read Only Memory and this is what's used to contain the information for your operating system, so when your computer starts up, it's using Read Only Memory. It's important now that we just get a clear picture of what a microprocessor is and I'll show you one here and this is on the motherboard of a computer. So microprocessors can perform multi tasks at the same time. You need to buy memory, that's the next picture where it's got two images at the front and back of a memory stick and a hard drive and computers, tablets and phones all contain these parts and they're super fast now. Phones have got more processing power than computers had a while ago. Real high tech pieces of equipment. So if you pause the video now and just try to think for a minute all the different applications that you sometimes run on even your phone, tablet or computer, you would not be able to do any of those things if you were using a microcontroller. The next term, microcontroller. Now, the BBC micro:bit that I showed you a minute ago, these are fantastic. You can programme them to do all sorts of really cool things and I'll talk about what you can do towards the end of the lesson. But they contain their own CPU, so Central Processing Unit, they've got memory and along the bottom, I'm going to try and show you here, these little holes may be a little bit blurred for the camera, but you can connect inputs and outputs, so switches, buzzers, lights, motors to the micro:bit and you could even have a fan come on if it was too hot. So the micro:bit has got a built in thermometer and it will allow the temperature to be checked all the time and a fan could turn on if it reached a certain temperature. Now you would programme the micro:bit, the microcontroller, just to do that one function. It wouldn't do anything else, it would just be a little computer to turn on a fan when a certain temperature was reached. So they're amazing for doing simple tasks, but they're not for multi tasking like a computer with a microprocessor. So, we're going to pause the video now and I will run through exactly what the task is. Next time your washing machine starts, I'd like you to be there when the start button is pressed and you try to work out for the first and last five minutes, what things you think might be controlled by a microcontroller. Now you know that things within the washing machine, there will be microcontrollers, it's not multi tasking. It's not also a microwave, it's not also a toaster, it is a washing machine and there are certain things that will be controlled by a microcontroller. So I'd like you to make a list of what happens in the first five minutes, what happens in the last five minutes and you try to come up with a good list of what you think a microcontroller is responsible for. So, how did you get on with the task? I hope that it's worked out and that some washing was being done during the lesson, or even better, if you could have gathered some washing and help out at home to go do the washing yourself in the middle of my lesson, that would be awesome. But in all seriousness, the things I actually hope that you've managed to spot is as soon as you start the washing machine, I've got a few bullet points here that I'll run through of some key things that happen. So, you'll hear a click and that's normally the door locking. The next is water would be allowed into the drum via the cleaning solution drawer, the wash cycle will then start. After that, the water is drained out because that water will contain the dirty water from washing your clothes and the cleaning detergent. Clean water then needs to come back in and then a spinning cycle will happen. So for each step of those, there will be some control by a microcontroller. Valves will be opened and closed to let the water flow. So when the water comes in from the main supply, a valve will have had to open to allow the water to flood in and then it will shut. Once the washing machine is spinning, then a valve will open to drain the water and another one will open for more clean water to enter as well. The washing machine door will not open during a cycle, so all of these sensors are within the washing machine that are letting the microcontroller know where the cycle is up to and which input and output is being activated, or needs to be activated to allow something to happen. Also water is heated along the way, depending on what type of wash it is that you've decided on and then also a different spin cycle can happen as well. So really, a washing machine is quite a simple application, but the way that it works is just by a microcontroller and it will follow a pattern of whatever needs to happen based upon the settings that you select. So the dial on the front, that let's the microcontroller know which cycle to run with so if you were picking a cycle to wash a shirt, such as this, you want might want to wash at 60 degrees and the washing machine will know that through the dial that you turn. If you want to wash at 30 degrees, you put another setting and the microcontroller will know only to heat the water to 30 degrees and there will be a thermostat, or thermometer within the washing machine that let's the microcontroller know that the water's at the correct temperature. So if you pause the video for a second and just have a think through of how amazing the washing machine is, but then also how simple it is really when you think about the programme that would run on a microcontroller. Another application for microcontrollers are with heating systems in a house. So now, a lot of people will have things such as Hive technology, you could have a phone where you can even turn your heating on from away from the home. So if you know that you're out and you think, oh it's cold and the heating's not on, you can actually activate your heating via the phone. How do you think that happens? So how do you think it's possible to turn your heating on from your phone? How do you think you can set the temperature with your phone when you're not even in the house? How do you think your house knows how hot it is and how do you think that the unit on the wall communicates with the boiler? There's lots and lots that you could find out, but microcontrollers are at the heart of all of the decisions that are made for whether the boiler comes on or not based upon a programme which is written for the microcontroller to follow. So if you pause the video now, you can have a quick little look on the internet to try to find some of these answers. How do you think it all works? The pre-task information which I've got here is all about making a drink. So I'm sure all of you have been through a vending machine at some point and selected a hot drink. My guess would be, it's hot chocolate. So, if you wanted to make a perfect drink or design a machine to make a drink for you, if you just think for a minute about all the things that are necessary. The first thing is, we're going to need some water. The water would need to come to a certain temperature. If it was a cup of tea, it my need to brew for a certain amount of time. Some people add milk and sugar to their drink to make it perfect for them and then some drinks, they've even got hot milk that's frothed and put in a fancy pattern on top. So how do you think a microcontroller could work to make sure that all those steps happen at the right time and for the right length of time. So the water needs to be heated until it's boiled. A teabag might need to be in place for a certain length of time. It sounds really simple, but it could be quite complicated to design. So pause the video now and you just have a think about all the things that a microcontroller would have to do for the drinks maker that you're doing to design in a minute. So the task, to explain this simply. If you think back to the washing machine task, I want you to list the steps that your drinks machine would need to perform, some of them I've mentioned already. You can rewind the video to mention the things that I said about making a drink and then once you've done that, if you make sure you go over the list again and pretend to be a little bit robotic. So think to yourself, has the water come in to the system is the right amount of water in. How much water do I need? How hot does it need to be? What happens next to the water? How does it get from one place to another? It all sounds simple, making a cup of tea, but if you were programming a robot to do all the things that are necessary using a microcontroller and a simple flow diagram of what needs to happen and for what length of time, it can get quite complicated. So just simply write out a list of bullet points, all the things that the microcontroller drinks maker would need to do and then we'll see where we are in a minute. You might have heard of the term flow chart before. If ever you buy an electronic product and it stops working, quite often at the back there is a flow chart and a flow chart will give you a series of logical steps that you follow and if you follow them you should be able to get your device working again. So the first thing might be switch on the device. Is there an LED lit? Are there batteries in? Are the batteries charged? All simple things that you would ask to try to work out a logical sequence to get to the route of what the issue is with the thing that you've bought. What we're going to do with a flow chart is develop a way of giving instruction to a microcontroller to make our drinks maker. So, most flow charts all start with that oval shaped box and that lets you know that the system, the flow chart is starting, so you have one at the beginning and one at the end. The next box, which is a rectangle, you write down what the process is, so what's happening in that box. A decision box might say something like, are there batteries in? And if there are no batteries in the device that you're checking then you would pop batteries in and if the answer to that was yes, you would progress down through that diamond box to the next part of the flow chart. If there are no batteries in, you'd go back in a loop to put batteries in the device and then follow down after that. The next shape represents different inputs and outputs, so is an input on or off? And is an output visible or something that you could hear. So if we had a switch, I might say is the input on or off and if we had an LED, is that lit or not? So inputs and outputs are things that you can normally see or hear. A decision is has something happened. A process is something that you need to do. Then the start and stop or end, that lets you know when the flow chart finishes. So those symbols you become familiar with those, you'll find it quite logical to write out a set of instructions. What I've done here is I've gone to list the simple way of brushing your teeth. So, we've got the start, I've decided to use an input, output box for wet the brush and put the toothpaste on. After that, put is the brush wet with toothpaste? So if it's not, then you go back round and that would need to be done again and then the flow chart follows round to say brush all parts of the mouth for two minutes and then rinse the brush and start. You can actually elaborate and add a little bit more to that as well, but I've tried to keep it simple just to make it clear. The next slide now, you're going to design a flow chart just for one stage in the programme of your drinks maker. So making a hot drink, like a hot chocolate, it can be quite complex, so you might decide just to focus on, I'm going to make sure that the water comes from the main supply and is heated. And that might just be the one bit that you focus on. Some people might focus on, well I want to get to have the drink. So I'm going to work out what needs to happen in my system from the hot water coming into a cup to me being able to take the cup out. So a microcontroller can be programmed with a flow chart. Write a short flow chart for one stage of your drink making process and one stage, such as adding a teabag could take a few flow chart boxes. So it sounds really simple, but if you look back a slide to the boxes I used for brushing my teeth, you should be able to apply the same strategy for one part of your drinks maker. I've talked about a mirco:bit before and if you look closely at the larger picture, that shows the front of the micro:bit and if you can explore this further, maybe when you get back to school, ask your teacher if they've got a micro:bit and if you can have a go at programming it. They're really straight forward and they can work on a flow chart system as well and you can even programme one online without owning a micro:bit yourself. So it will do an online simulation and the front of it here, if you read carefully, it will show you some of the key features. So it's got a microphone, it's got a speaker, an accelerometer, that measures the speed. So you can actually throw a micro:bit and then it will tell you how fast it's travelled. It's got a compass that you can shake them about and it will act as an input for the LED pattern which is on the back. The little holes along the bottom, I tried to show you these earlier in the video, different inputs and outputs can be added to those so you could actually connect one micro:bit to another or you could add LED's or a fan and other devices. So a mirco:bit is a computer in it's own right with it's own processor and memory on board. You programme it on screen, plug it in to a computer and you download the programme and then you can unplug it from the computer and use it for controlling many different things. You could even devise your own alarm or temperature control system for in a bedroom and have a fan come on when it reached a certain temperature so they're amazing, you can do lots with them and it'll just be something to leave you with, to be able to think, go and have a play and see if you can investigate what you can do with a micro:bit yourself if that's the sort of thing that interests you, as it does me. We've come to the end now, where we'll just go over some of the key words just to make sure you fully understand. So the first one was microprocessor. This was the part of a computer responsible for the thinking, like the brain of a computer and you know that you need many other parts to go with it and a microprocessor can multi task. A microcontroller follows a set of instructions that you programmed. It will question decisions, so it's an output, on or off and it can control simple procedures, such as is it hot, I'll turn on a fan. Is it cold, I'll turn off the fan. The next two terms was RAM and ROM. So RAM is Read Only Memory and RAM is the thing that you can buy to upgrade your computer and it acts as short term memory for your system and ROM is a read only memory and that's what opens up the operating system on your computer. So I hope you've been as excited for this lesson as I have. Definitely try to look into getting a micro:bit or having a go with one when you get back to school and I will see you in the next lesson. Thank you very much.

Many products are disposed of when we no longer need them, or when they have reached the end of their usable life. In this lesson, we will look at what designers could do to extend the life of a product once it has been used.

Can products be of use at the end of their life?

﻿Hello, I'm Mr. Donnelly. And this is the last lesson in a unit of four. And this one is all about what we can do with a product at the end of its life. The unit was all about technology of the future and if we're going to have any future at all, it is really important to make sure that what we design is environmentally sound, well thought through, and great for the environment. So I will join you in a minute to crack on with the lesson. Make sure you've got some paper and a pencil and ready are to go and I'll see you in a minute. In this lesson there are three things that we're going to do. The first thing is, I'd like you to try to understand what is meant by a linear economy. We'll work out how we can develop a more circular economy. And through doing that, and hopefully throughout the whole duration of the lesson, we will question your own impact on the environment with a view to trying to improve the way that we go about our day-to-day life so that we are more environmentally friendly. As I mentioned in my introduction at the start, you'll need some paper and something to write with. If you've not got those things, pause the video, go and get them now and then return, and we'll crack on. The key words for this lesson, some of them may seem familiar but they're slightly different because they're in the context of a design and technology lesson. The term linear economy. I'll read. Is when resources are used to create a product and once that product is no longer needed or used, it is discarded. So if we take resources from the earth, such as a tree, you might make something out of timber. And then at the end of it's life, it's discarded but not dealt with properly, then that would be part of the linear economy about taking, making and wasting. A circular economy, that plans to stop things going back into landfill. So it's all about trying to plan for an end of life plan for a product that we've designed. So if you can design something that doesn't end up going into landfill, could either be repaired or reused or put to another use, that would be parts of a circular economy. And then the last term is cradle to grave. Now, you might've heard this before. I've mentioned it in one of my previous lessons and it's the term used to describe the birth of a product right from getting the raw materials, right the way through to the products being discarded. As you can guess, cradle to grave is part of a linear economy rather than a circular economy. I've gotten here some pictures that should hopefully explain the term cradle to grave a little clearer. So I've got two pictures to start with, picture of cradle and a grave. And you know that this will start with birth and death. But when we're talking about a material, if we get a raw material such as some timber, the material would then be processed. Being processed into a stock fall, there's transport that's involved. And then eventually, something would be sold in a shop. And then it would be discarded at the end. So whatever materials are sourced from the earth, they would have to then be processed into a stock form and likely turned into a product that would then need to be transported, go to retail or a warehouse, then discarded at the end of life after it's been bought and no longer needed. This term is also known as a life cycle assessment. And it's assessing an environmental impact on the life of a particular product. So raw materials are extracted , manufacturing and processing takes place, transport of goods and materials, retail and usage, and then discarded at the end. And if you could remember those five key points, whenever you hear the term at school life cycle assessments you could always break down your response and answer into five points with some examples. And that would be the making of a great response if a teacher asks about a life cycle assessments. There is another term that's really quite popular and that is the term over the six Rs. So I'm going to put these on the screen and then you be able to pause the video just to see how we can apply these six Rs to our day-to-day life and see how they could help. So rethink. I think that as a designer, you should always be rethinking how you go about your job, how you go about your design practise, because the products that you make they're the products of the future. And to rethink the way that things are done to try to become part of a circular economy that is much better than a linear, maybe a more traditional way of working. Repair. I think that's absolutely crucial. If you can design for repair and maintenance, that is much better than designing for planned obsolescence where you know that something is going to be discarded. Reuse. There are many things that you buy that you reuse. I'll take a supermarket carrier bag for instance. If you were to buy one of the more expensive ones, maybe 35 to 50 pounds and you reuse it over and over again, that's so much better than when people used to just get carrier bags for free, use them once and then throw them away. So to reuse things that's far better than having to throw away society. Reduce. The thing that springs to mind here is a reduction in packaging and materials. So if you can design something which has got less packaging, less plastic, at least maybe less ocean pollution, is surely a great thing. Recycle. Well, a lot of people think that recycling is good, which it's better than some alternative. But if you recycle it, then in a way you've already discarded the product. If we could stop having to recycle and get to a point where products last for longer so that they're not discarded, they're repaired, that's better. So recycling is not a worst case scenario because a product could be discarded and not be recycled but it's still not the best. There are better alternatives that people are working on now due to the rethinking those part of this six Rs. The last term is refuse. You could refuse to buy oranges that are in plastic packets. I've seen some that have got foam around the outside, under them within a plastic bag. You might decide to think I'm going to buy my fruits and vegetables from a market where they come in a paper bag and that would reduce the amounts of plastic. If everybody did that, plastic would be reduced. And I'm sure supermarkets would get on board in questioning why they're not selling much fruits and veg. And they'd think people don't want the plastic that the products come in. So pause the video now and see how you could apply these six Rs to your day-to-day life to make a huge environmental impact. This picture is quite unusual because depending on where you live, you might not have seen these before. This is a photograph of a series of bikes from London and they're just near a tube station. And what I'd like to pose as a question is, do we need to own much stuff? Now I've got some friends that live in London and they use these bikes. They live in flats, which is quite popular for people in London and they don't have room in their flat to be able to store the bike. So what they do is when they get off the London underground, pop up at one end, and they've got a key, which they pay for to be able to use a bike. In doing that they can cycle from one tube stop to another, leave the bike where they don't need it anymore, and return it. If you use the bike every day, you can pay an annual fee and it works out as really cheap. I think is less than 50 pounds a day to be able to get on a bike and cycle from one place to another. You can borrow the bike for up to two hours or 24 hours and there are different fees. You don't need to pay for maintenance. You return the bike. The only issue is that I believe in some parts of the world, the bikes are not returned correctly. This boils down to just poor human error, lack of judgement , and a lack of respect of the system. What really should happen is if you can borrow a bike, results less emissions, less traffic, it's a much cleaner and healthier way to travel around. And I think potentially it could be a really good thing to have in more cities. So a bike that you can bow rather than owning, maintenance is taken care of, the bikes are repaired, and they're moved around the city to make sure that there's equal distribution at one tube stop to the other. So if you ever see these and you're able to have a go, you know that you'll play in a part in reducing emissions and keeping fit and healthy at the same time. So pause the video now and just try and have a think of do you think there are other things that you could borrow rather than own? So if you could borrow something rather than own it, maybe just write a little list of some things that you use everyday at home, but you think it would be good maybe like a washing machine, do you need to own a washing machine? Could it be something that you hire, or that you pay an annual subscription and then every so often it gets swapped over for a new model? Quite often, if a washing machine is broken then people replaced the whole thing. When really it might just be a small part that needs to be repaired. So have a think, what things do you think you could borrow rather than actually buy? So here I've chosen five different products. All of them have got something in common besides being DIY tools. The first one was a sander, angle grinder, circular saw ,jigsaw, and then cordless drill. What do you think they have in common though besides being pro tools normally used by DIY enthusiasts and tradespeople? So if you can think that we're doing a lesson all about trying to be more environmentally friendly, when you look at all those tools what's one thing that they have in common? So pause the video, have a think. Did you get it right? It's a motor. So all of those, all contained a motor. Now do you think it would be possible to maybe design a power tool that had an interchangeable battery so you could charge it up rather than having to be run on the mains? Do you think we could have one unit that had a motor and then different attachments clip to the main body so that you do not need to buy as many plastic parts? It could be more compact. I think there's lots of benefits of this way of thinking. And I think with power tools, it's something that some companies have started to develop. And I think it's definitely the way forward to try to think of reduction in materials, strive to make a more environmentally friendly line of products. The next thing to talk about, still back to tools. So we've got a screwdriver set and under my picture we've got some screwdriver bits. So do you think it's possible to argue that the screwdriver bits are better for the environment than the range of screwdrivers? So pause the video and try to think of an answer. If you thought that the range of screwdriver bits are more environmentally friendly because they use less materials, you would be correct. If you look at the picture of the screwdrivers, they've got plastic and metal joined as one part. So one tool but lots of material. It would be possible to have one screwdriver handle and then interchangeable bits at the end. Therefore we've got less plastic and less different materials. It's also more compact, easier to transport, so there are benefits to the consumer as well. But as far as the environment goes, there are less different parts needed. A simple solution which has been around for awhile. I've gathered these pictures because they're all related to food and sometimes different types of food processes. For a long time now, food processes have had one unit with a motor than interchangeable parts. So you can chop, great, I've got one that's got a dough hook all as well for making bread and pizza bases, it's got a whisk for making melange, that's why I use it for anyway. And I've known some that have got mincers all as well so you could buy steak or any type of meat and actually make your own mince so you know what meats has gone into them into that you're going to eat. So food processes, I've used the same technology and thought for awhile where they've got one machine, one motor and multiple attachments to offer a variety of different things that you could do in a kitchen. So for the first task, I want you to look around your house and try to find ways to reduce materials. I've put two examples on here for you to read. The first one is if you had a pencil and a rubber, whoever decided to take a rubber and put it on top of the pencil, it's a great idea because you've got rid of the need of having to have two different things. You're not going to lose the rubber is fastened to the pencil. And the other example that I've got is a pen that you can write with with one end and then flip it over and there's a highlighter on the other end. So spend five minutes, look around your house, and try to find some examples of things that you might use together in combination like a pencil and an eraser and trying to think of a way to combine them so that less materials are used. So there's a term, a linear economy and there'll be a pause button in a minute for you just to have a think and mull over what that actually means to you. If you take something from the environment, make something with it, and then it's discarded at the end, you know that there's been waste created. And if not dealt with properly, it could end up in landfill. So if we have a clear piece of land that eventually gets filled full of rubbish, it might be there for hundreds of years before it breaks down. That's not good for the environment. So to take something, make something with it, and then it ended up going straight to waste, that's not good. Some products are made with laminated materials and they're very difficult to recycle. And there's a term planned obsolescence where you know that if you buy that product, you know that you're going to throw it away at the end. So if anything that you can do to try to minimise the purchase of those types of products, the better. So pause the video now and have a think what things you could do or changes you could make to not be parts of the linear economy. The alternative to a linear economy is a circular economy. And I've used nature as an analogy. I Imagined that we've got a plant that's eaten by a worm of a group, that would be eaten by a bird, and unfortunately at sometime, the bird will die. Afterwards, the body would decompose to compost and that would go back into the earth with no waste end it with nutrients into the ground. And this will be part of a circular economy where nothing is wasted and it goes back to something which is usable for another plant to be born in the ground, which is enhanced by the compose from the bird. There's no waste. And if followed then delicate equilibrium is maintained then it works for living things. Is a circular economy possible at home? If your washing machine breaks, normally a new one is bought. What else could be done simply than buying a new one? So pause the video and have a think. I've hinted at this earlier on in the video but what do you think you could do rather than going to spend in a few hundred pounds on a new washing machine? Is there an alternative that could be part of a circular economy rather than a linear economy? So as an example, for two famous companies that are involved in a circular economy, one of them is G-Star Raw. And what they've started to do is collect plastic off the ocean and from the beach and they're turning it into clothing. Another company, Timberland, they've decided to start collecting tyres that are no longer fit for purpose. So when you change the tyres on your car, you often see them stacked up at the side of a garage. When they go somewhere, people don't often know what happens to them but recycling them and turning them back into the sole of a shoe is surely a great thing. So those two companies, there are others as well, they're doing their bit to try to be part of a circular economy. Rather than knowing that waste is being created and thrown away, they're collecting it and actually using it to make something which is highly desirable. I've made up the name of a company, the Domestic Lending Company. And I imagined that me and you are going to start working together in this company. And this is part of our business plan. So what were you going to do is buy some products that people want but they don't need all the time and we're going to lend them out for a fee. So the drill that's shown on here will be really expensive, rarely used unless you're a professional trades person, and some people might just want to borrow one for a weekend. So we would buy them, maintain them, lend them. And it would mean that people wouldn't need that huge outlay. The same with a suit. You might not wear a tuxedo very much of a wedding suits. So you might choose to hire one for a weekend rather than buy it. There're some questions that we're going to have to come up with. How are we going to tackle the initial costs, storage, hygiene, transportation, repair, and service and upgrades because people will always want to hire the best? So all we've got to do is think of some of the tricky questions that people might ask us to see if there are any flaws in our business model. So the main task. We've got to plan a pitch to a bank or a team of investors and think of all the things that they'd want to ask us. And then we're going to plan answers to give to them. The way you plan your presentation is entirely up to you. It would be awesome if you could make a video and then send the video to your teacher to be able to see. So you've got to come up with a good sound model of how we could start the Domestic Lending Company together. Think of all the things that we'd need to find out, pitfalls and problems, but make sure that you've got some solutions, come up with a presentation, and that will be fantastic. To visit the keywords at the end, you should know now that our linear economy is what we want to try to move away from. So we do not want to take, make and waste. We want to try to move on to a circular economy where things are used over and over and things are not made to go back into landfill. The last term was cradle to grave and you know that this fit in with the linear economy. So cradle to grave is all about taking and then eventually a product dying. So the term cradle to grave represents from birth to death. So raw materials, right the way through to being discarded at the end. And if we can try to eliminate that and live with a circular economy in mind, that will be far better. I hope you've enjoyed the lesson. I really have. It's been a great one. And I'll see you in another lesson that I do.

Unit Overview: Future tech now!

Lessons:

How has technology changed to meet the demands of the consumer?

What new technologies are being developed that are changing the way we live and work?

Could you cope without microcontrollers in your life?

Can products be of use at the end of their life?