investigating influences impacting on manufactured products and processes such as historical developments, society, new materials, control systems and biomimicry, for example the development of velcro
experimenting to select the most appropriate principles and systems on which to base design ideas, for example structural components to be tested for strength
calculating an engineered system’s outputs, for example speed, brightness of light, volume of sound
producing prototypes and jigs to test functionality, including the use of rapid prototyping tools such as 3D printers
using code to control systems, for example code to program a microcontroller or a simple, object-based coding application to program a system such as a remote-controlled car or simple robotic arm
investigating components, tools and equipment, for example testing the durability of batteries, determining the effective range of wireless devices