LEGO

"LEGO", comes from the Danish phrase leg godt, which means "play-well".


LEGO was originally designed in the 1940s in Denmark and have achieved an international appeal, with an extensive subculture that supports Lego movies, games, competitions, and five Lego themed amusement parks.


The Lego Group began in the workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen, a carpenter from Billund, Denmark, who began making wooden toys in 1932.


It expanded to producing plastic toys in 1947. In 1949 Lego began producing the now famous interlocking bricks, calling them "Automatic Binding Bricks". 


These bricks were based largely on the patent of Kiddicraft Self-Locking Bricks, which were released in the United Kingdom in 1947. LEGO modified the design of the Kiddicraft brick after examining a sample given to it by the British supplier of an injection-molding machine that the company had purchased.The bricks, originally manufactured from cellulose acetate, were a development of traditional stackable wooden blocks that locked together by means of several round studs on top and a hollow rectangular bottom. The blocks snapped together, but not so tightly that they required extraordinary effort to be separated.


Since 1963, Lego pieces have been manufactured from a strong, resilient plastic known as acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS).

Lunch boxes

The concept of a food container has existed for a long time, but it wasn't until people began using tobacco tins to haul meals in the early 20th century, followed by the use of lithographed images on metal, that the containers became a staple of youth, and a marketable product.
Lunch boxes have been manufactured using various materials. Typically, children's school lunch boxes are made of plastic or vinyl, while adult workers' lunch boxes are commonly made of metal, such as tin or aluminium, due to the greater need for durability. The aluminium variant was invented in 1954 by Leo May, a miner in Sudbury, Ontario, after he accidentally crushed his tin lunch box.
Today, lunch boxes are generally made of vinyl, with foam insulation, and an aluminum/vinyl interior. As a result, they’re usually much better at retaining their temperature but are less rigid/protective.

Lego and Gender

The first video is a brief history of how Lego marketed to girls from the late 70's

  

The second video explains how Lego changed the user experience to a male dominated one. 

Lego!

There is one of these large cirles (in the centre) per four small bumps on the top of a brick. 

A lego wheel attached to two bricks

Some of the different shapes of Lego that you can get.

An Existing Lunchbox

This is one of my sisters lunchboxes, she loves it because the lids all come off and she likes the different compartments for the different food. And of course she likes the pink two. But the sizing is completely wrong, its just not suitable to fit food into the top compartments.

The lunchbox is 21cm by 14cm  and has three compartments on top

The largest of the three compartments is 12cm by 10cm

The smaller compartments are both 6cm by 10cm

21cm by 14cm

The lid when its open the line is only 2cm long

The lid closed down

The clasp that keeps the lid on is really simple. Its just a line that goes around the box. The front of the clasp is designed to fit a finger, so you can pull it up.

Thoughts from a Parent

What are your thoughts on the food you put in school lunches and what do you look for when buying a lunchbox?

Foods should be low in sugar and fat
Water is good
Fruit should be in handy sized pieces to be eaten easily
I try and choose food the child likes - or it won't be eaten
Try and vary the foods each day

A container should be -

Easily open/closed by child
Interconnecting
Compartments or individual boxes inside
Easily washed - Suitable for dishwasher
No silly wee corners
Light weight
Sturdy
Bright and colourful - Most kids want the characters on the front (Hello Kitty/ Ben 10)
Big enough to hold everything with a small one to carry snack for break-time
Water bottle included - hard to fit water bottles if they don't come with it.
Handles for tiny hands?
Possibly a liner which will keep food cool in summer - can be removed for washing and replaced if necessary.

Interview with a 7 year old

I wanted to find out what a 7 year old thought about food, so i wrote out a few questions and asked her, i knew she wouldn't know to much about the nutrients that were in food but the answers were interesting. Heres the interview...

Whats your favorite food?
First answer for this was "Everything" then she narrowed it down to "Pizza, fish fingers, chips"

What do you not like?
Onions, Lettuce and Jam

What time do you eat?
Don't know

Do you like dinners or lunches at school?
Dinners

Whats your favourite school dinner?
Soup, Pizza or hotdogs
Don't like tuna roll

If you were having lunches what would be in it?
Biscuits, yogurt, crisps and "what we always have to take.. a sandwich"

Do you have enough time to eat at school?
Yes and No. Depends if she talks to much.

Do you know what energy is?
Helps you stay awake and play

Do you know what a protein is?
No

Do you know what a carbohydrate is?
A kind of food

Do you know what fat is?
Something very round an chubby

And is fat in food?
Yes some foods

Do you know what type of food?
No

What are good foods?
Fruit and Veg

What is bad food?
Coke
Sweets
Crisps
Treats

Are all treats bad for you?
No ones with fruit flavors or fruit in them are good

Jamie Oliver

After the research I done the other day I came across Jamie Olivers website, it has a section on fact sheets
These could come in useful if i'm going to incorporate some type of teaching or learning for the children. I found the links on understanding the eat well plate, portion sizes, the traffic light labelling also perfect pack lunches were particularly good.

A method to measure the effect of food appearance factors on children’s visual preferences

Highlights

► Children’s visual preferences and their drivers for food choice can be estimated by conjoint analysis. 

► Children prefer food products without visible fruit. 

► Colour has a high impact on children’s visual preferences. 

► Segments of children have different visual preferences. 

► A high correlation between a picture-based conjoint layout and actual product choices exists.


Info taken from - 
Kildegaard H., Olsen A., Gabrielsen G., Moller P., Thybo, A.K. (2011) A method to measure the effect of food appearance factors on children's visual preference, Food Quality and Preferance, Vol. 22, Issue 8, December 2011, Pages 736-771

This was a study on packaging for smoothies and yogurts, I'm thinking for my box maybe the material should be opaque so the kids cant see what they have for there lunch? And definitely bright, child friendly colours.

What do you put in a lunchbox?

On the Sainsbury's website there is a 5 day lunchbox planner. It goes through the different things you could put in a lunchbox that isn't just the ordinary sandwiches. They had wraps, pasta, rolls, bagels and a fritatta.

After seeing that i was thinking i could have 5 different lunchboxes, which all stack up in the cupboard, each box would be shaped differently to hold different foods and could come with different recipes of the things you could put in them. Plus kids are always forgetting and breaking lunchboxes, so its always handy to have a few spare.

What should be on food labelling?

I was just looking into information on food labels. I found the information here. Nutrition labelling may be given in two main formats, but must include the amount of any
nutrient for which a claim has been made.


The minimum declaration permitted is a "Group 1" declaration.

"Group 1" (also known as "Big 4") declaration
energy kJ and kcal
protein g
carbohydrate g
fat g


The other standard format is a "Group 2" declaration.

"Group 2" (also known as "Big 4 + little 4" and "4+4" declaration)
energy kJ and kcal
protein g
carbohydrate g
of which:
- sugars g
fat g
of which:
- saturates g
fibre g
sodium g


The Government recommends that Group 2 information be given on all foods, on a
voluntary basis, as this gives consumers information on the key health-related nutrients.

Nutritinal guidlines for 7 - 10 year olds

Food wheel

Kids should be aware of what they need to be eating, Maybe i could make it into a game? Or have the lunchbox laid out in ways that each food type fits into a different compartment.

Also teaching kids how to read food labels could be a good idea to go with, and the Traffic light system could be good for the coulours.

This gave me a laugh

This isn't the age range i'm going with, but i thought it was funny..

It kinda shows that at this age kids will try anything they are given, because they don't know what the food is.

Piaget's cognitive theory

For the Final Major Project I have chosen the 5 -11years age range. However I believe this age range is to broad. After some research I have found that Piagets cognitive theory splits this age range into three stages.

At age 4-7 children are at the the Pre-operational stage.. This means they have good knowledge but don't understand how they know it, so they become curious and ask questions. At this age imaginations are developed. The child's thinking is influenced by imagination (the way they’d like things to be)and the child assumes that others see situations from they're viewpoint. The child takes in information and then changes it in his mind to fit his idea. Piaget noted that children in this stage do no yet understand concrete logic, cannot mentally manipulate information. Children’s increase in playing and pretending takes place in the Pre-operational stage.


7-11 is when children are at concrete operational stage. Children in this stage can only solve problems that apply to actual (concrete) objects or events, and not abstract concepts or hypothetical tasks. Intelligence is demonstrated through logical and systematic manipulation of symbols related to concrete objects. The child develops an ability to think abstractly and to make rational judgements about concrete or observable phenomena, which in the past he needed to manipulate physically to understand.


11years on-wards is the beginning of the formal operational stage. In this stage, individuals move beyond concrete experiences and begin to think abstractly, reason logically and draw conclusions from the information available, as well as apply all these processes to hypothetical situations.  Adolescents begin to think more as a scientist thinks, devising plans to solve problems and systematically testing solutions. They use hypothetical-deductive reasoning, which means that they develop hypotheses or best guesses, and systematically deduce, or conclude, which is the best path to follow in solving the problem. During this stage the young person begins to entertain possibilities for the future and is fascinated with what they can be.


I've decided for my project I will focus on the age range of 5-7, which is within the age range stated in the brief and within the Pre-operational stage of Piaget's theory.


I got the information on Piagets Theory from here.

My new bottle in 3ds max

So i started to create my new bottle in 3ds max, but after about 3-4 hours i came up with this, it doesn't look like the idea of how i want my design to look so i've decided for the submission i will just do the render and orthographic view by hand.

My Model of an existing water bottle

This is the bottle i choose to create in 3ds max. 

Firstly i drew a quick sketch so i could write all the measurements down and know what they were for.

This is the final render of the bottle

Class work - Polymodelling

 In class we done pollymodelling and created different boxes

A render of the boxes

Using the same techniques we then created a bottle.

Georgia O'Keefe

After doing some designs for my bottle i think the idea of using the shape of a flower (in particular looking at tulips) is the direction im going to go. I looked at some of Georgia O'Keefes work to help influence me with the shapes in them.