Learning area
Design and Technologies Incursions
Designing, building, testing and improving a real structure. These incursions sit in the Victorian Curriculum 2.0 Technologies learning area, under Design and Technologies, Creating Designed Solutions. They are not Science.
$490 + GST per program, flat. No per-student fees. Bookings have a 2-session minimum.
Design and Technologies is a separate learning area, not a science strand
It is worth being precise about this, because it affects what you can claim in your planning documents. Design and Technologies is its own learning area in the Victorian Curriculum 2.0, sitting alongside Science rather than inside it. The content descriptions these sessions address come from the Creating Designed Solutions strand, the VCDSCD codes, not from Science Understanding. If you need to cover Physical, Chemical, Biological or Earth and Space Sciences, the strand pages for those are the right place.
Creating Designed Solutions asks students to follow a process rather than learn a body of knowledge: investigate a need, generate and communicate design ideas, produce a solution safely with real materials and tools, evaluate it against criteria for success, and plan and manage the steps along the way. It is the one part of the curriculum where being wrong on the first attempt is the intended outcome. A tower that collapses is data, not failure.
That process is hard to run in a normal classroom because it needs materials, mess, and enough of both for thirty students to build, break and rebuild inside one session. Our Building & Construction program does exactly that at three year bands, with the challenge and the success criteria pitched up as students get older: from describing which tower stood up, to justifying material choices with test measurements, to negotiating the criteria themselves.
Curriculum coverage
The distinct Victorian Curriculum v2.0 content descriptions addressed across the programs on this page.
- VCDSCD018Explore the properties of different construction materials and describe how shape and joining technique affect the strength and stability of a structure
- VCDSCD019Design and build towers and bridges to meet a simple brief, and test them under load including a simulated earthquake
- VCDSCD020Build a simple catapult and describe how a stored push force is released to move an object
- VCDSCD021Use personal preferences and what happened in testing to say which tower, bridge or catapult design worked best and why
- VCDSCD029Apply an engineering design process to build towers and arch bridges, comparing how different shapes and reinforcement strategies affect structural performance
- VCDSCD028Select materials and joining techniques based on their physical properties and test how they affect strength and stability under load
- VCDSCD030Build and test a catapult, measure performance, and propose evidence-based improvements to the design
- VCDSCD031Evaluate each design against agreed criteria for success — tower height and stability, bridge span, launch distance — using the results of testing
- VCDSCD039Apply a systematic engineering design process — design, build, test, evaluate, iterate — to a series of structural and mechanical challenges
- VCDSCD038Justify material and structural choices using evidence from testing, including earthquake resistance and bridge load capacity
- VCDSCD040Measure catapult performance against defined criteria, identify structural failure points, and implement evidence-based design improvements
- VCDSCD041Negotiate and apply criteria for success for each challenge, then judge the finished design against them
3 programs in this group
Design and Technologies
Building & Construction
Young engineers build earthquake-tested cup towers and arch bridges, discovering which materials and joining techniques create stronger structures, then construct and fire a simple catapult.
Design and Technologies
Building & Construction
Students build earthquake-resistant towers, design and test arch bridges, and construct a catapult, applying an engineering design process and refining their designs based on measured results.
Design and Technologies
Building & Construction
Students tackle towers, bridges and a precision catapult using the full engineering design cycle: designing, building, testing against measurable criteria, and iterating to improve performance.
Common questions
What's included in the cost?
Can you work with mixed year levels?
What happens before and after the incursion?
Get a quote for Design and Technologies incursions
Tell us your year levels and the term you're planning for. We'll confirm availability and send a quote — no per-student fees, no surprises.
Limited dates each term — one facilitator, one school per day.