Designing Sports Bags

If you every look at crowd sourcing site on line, you'll find an assortment of groups who market the "perfect bag".  Yes, I've invested in a few of which one has gone into production and been delivered while the other one will soon arrive.

I invested in a backpack that allowed me to spend a couple weeks in Europe with only a small roller bag as my check through.  It was great.  I spotted a task which would be perfect in the Geometry classroom based on shapes and nets.

Why no assign students the task of designing a sports bag or gym bag to certain specifications just like designers do in the real world?  The teacher is the manager who assigns the students to design and make a patterns for the sewing room to make the object.

Criteria could include:
1. The finished bag is 55 cm long
2.  The circular ends must have a diameter of 22 cm.
3. The body is made from a single piece of fabric.
4. The ends must be made from the same fabric.
5.  Make sure there is an extra 1.5 cm added to all sides for the seam.
6. The fabric is 1 meter wide.

The student needs to create a pattern with the exact shapes needed.  In addition, the student needs to determine the smallest amount of fabric needed to make the bag.  This means they need to create a cutting guide, just like the ones found in patterns.

A perfect place to insert this type of activity in the geometry class is when studying the nets needed to make three dimensional shapes such as cylinders, pyramids, etc.  I love finding any application I can for real life applications.  In the past, I've had them just create the nets for various shapes but this activity takes it a step further.

There are a couple sites which have wonderful lesson plans for this activity.  One is at the Mathematics Assessment Project, which has everything needed to run this in your classroom.  If you prefer, you could have students design a backpack (rectangular prism) or other type of bag.

Let me know what you think.  Have a great day.