Design and make project work: A recent EITB exhibition

Project work of the DESIGN AND MAKE type has come to form an important part of the training of craftsmen, technicians and professional engineers (technologists). For craftsmen and technicians the purpose is to co‐ordinate and extend the basic training which has preceded it. This is illustrated by the fact that the Engineering Industry Training Board incorporate project work in Part C of their first year basic training. Part A, a period of about three months, is concerned with the induction stage; Part B, which normally occupies about six months, is devoted to the development of basic manipulative skills; Part C, the final three months of basic first year training, deals with more specialised skills. Throughout the first year there is a progression from bench‐exercises and test‐pieces towards the manufacture of useful items. In one way this is a progression away from manufacturing for scrap towards manufacturing for use. An example of this is to be seen in the trainees making the tools which they will be using as craftsmen; in some training schemes this occurs at a very early stage. There is another element in this progression which takes place throughout first year training: it is a passing forward from making single, individual components from diagrams prepared by the instructor towards the manufacture of more complex assemblies starting with a specification supplied by some client, purchaser or consumer. This forward progression culminates in the project. Thus, the project presents the instructor with the means of broadening out the thinking of the trainee. By that time the trainee is relatively competent at manipulative skills and the project introduces him to the problems of manufacture, with all its anxieties of meeting delivery dates, working to a pre‐determined cost, integrating a collection of individuals into a team with a common aim, last‐minute changes in specification and design and so on.