Year 7 and 8 travel to Kirkwood Technology Centre every Wednesday. Group 1 have been working on a theme about Making, Creating and Innovating.

With loads of excess fabric being dumped into landfills all over New Zealand and the world, Riccarton rangatahi are taking action!

Using anything from old jeans, dresses, t-shirts, grandad's old tie, curtain and couch material waste, even whitebait nets (imported from China but had to be modified, leaving unused nylon pieces), there is no fabric left unused!

Learners can choose to create high fashion hoodies (ready to walk the runway) toy monsters, bags, cushions, pencil cases and even covid masks or anything that will give new life to the fabric by making it useful again.

They will complete this challenge by following The Five Steps of Design Thinking – a word-wide system for innovation:

Step one: Empathize

We think about how we feel about the problem of material waste and what we could do about it.

Step two: Define

We decide what we could make and create, who for and when they might use it by writing a design brief.

Step three: Ideate

This involves sketching what we want it to look like and adding a few notes to help decide how it will be sewn. We tried to be innovative - adding materials that reflect our culture, finding an image on google and printing it on fabric, or using the embroidery machine to write our name on the fabric.

Step four: Prototype

Making and creating is the fun part, a first iteration of the design, which might include making patterns

Step five: Test

We test our prototypes in different ways, until we are sure that our outcomes will be useful.

Every day excess fabric is being thrown away into landfills. Usually good quality and in large amounts with years of life left. Think about what you could make with it before you throw it away!