Industrial Design
Industrial Design is a course offered every other year at Colegio Maya. The inspiration behind the course came from a course titled Design & Passion, where students were allowed to pick a path or project they wanted to investigate deeper. With Industrial Design, students are required to investigate a problem around them which relates to the UN Sustainability Goals, and design a solution to the problem. Below are a few examples of the projects students have worked on in Industrial Design.
Hydroponics is a method of growing plants in sand, gravel, or liquid without the use of soil. Students at Maya were inspired to address several UN Goals—Zero Hunger, Sustainable Cities, and Life on Land—by creating a hydroponics setup.
The ultimate aim is for the hydroponics system to supply the cafeteria with all the greens needed to feed students. The first harvest in 2021-22 proved successful, yielding numerous heads of lettuce along with 8-10 other types of vegetables.
This year, a new group of students is continuing the project, with plans to create indoor growing areas throughout the campus instead of outdoor ones. This approach will enable year-round sustainable growth and protect the crops from the challenges of outdoor weather.
In 2021-22, a group of sophomores designed and built this plastic grinding machine with the goal of starting a Precious Plastics Club. The club aimed to collect and recycle used #2 plastics, transforming them into new, usable objects.
This year, those same students are returning with plans to continue their project. Their goal is to design and build outdoor furniture that can be placed around the MakerSpace, providing students with a place to eat lunch and study on sunny days. They are also working on designing and creating a cart that will house all the manufacturing equipment, including the grinder, oven, and pressing tools.
In 2021-22, a pair of students decided to build a drone by hand. The different parts were ordered or manufactured in the MakerSpace. After a successful (yet difficult) flight, this year, the students are looking to redesign the drone and add better GPS flight navigation hardware, along with a gimbal to mount a series of cameras for HD in-flight recording