Abstract:

The paper focuses on a field research experience carried out by two assistant professors and a team of teachers from a seventh-grade class in Milan: it was a fruitful collaboration between two educational institutions of different levels that hardly find opportunities for dialogue. Moreover it turned out to be a valuable experience in terms of approach to design by younger students, application of innovative teaching processes and methods, experimentation of production technologies specific to the “industry 4.0” paradigm, use of co-design practices.

The "Lamp&d" project, in fact, led to the prototyping of a table-lamp through: a brief co-built by the university researchers and the middle-school teachers; a collaborative and problem-based learning that actively involved all the actors of the process; an experiential and playful methodology to develop a design thinking, based on "playing cards" able to stimulate and guide students' creativity; a design-oriented learning driven by a trial and error process; a first approach to digital fabrication technologies which led to a physical prototyping realized thanks to the collaboration with the FabLab of the partner university.

Keywords:

Innovative educational methods, digital fabrication, design thinking, game-based learning.