Unit 7 — Technology Design - Designing a Knee Brace
Description
Using the Boston Museum Engineering Adventures Knee Brace design kit, students learn how technology helps the human body. They design and test knee braces, understanding constraints of comfort and function. This unit applies engineering design to biomedical technology and extends across multiple months with repeated design cycles.
Essential Questions
- How do we design technology to help human bodies?
- What constraints affect design decisions in medical devices?
- How do we test if a design works?
Learning Objectives
- Understand the function of joints and how braces support them
- Design a knee brace using provided materials
- Test the brace for comfort, mobility, and support
- Identify constraints (cost, materials, comfort) in design
- Iterate designs to improve function
- Communicate design reasoning and improvements
Supplemental Resources
- Pocket folders for organizing kit materials and documentation
- Index cards for labeling parts and recording observations
- Markers for creating design notes and labels
Engineering, Technology, and Applications of Science
Engineering Design
Interaction of Technology and Humans
Nature of Technology
Students write in science notebooks, create digital stories about plants and animals, and communicate findings through word processing documents and presentations. Students read and interpret informational texts about engineering design and natural systems.
Formative Assessments
- Observation of brace design and construction
- Testing of comfort and mobility with the prototype
- Class discussion of design challenges and trade-offs
- Sketches and notes on design iterations
Summative Assessment
Functional knee brace prototype with documentation of design process, testing results, and explanations of design choices
Benchmark Assessment
— not configured —
Alternative Assessment
Students may demonstrate understanding through a guided interview or visual presentation of their knee brace design and testing results instead of written documentation. Pre-made labels, word banks, and sentence frames may be provided to support explanations of design choices and how the brace supports joint function.
IEP (Individualized Education Program)
During design and construction tasks, provide visual step-by-step guides that show how materials can be assembled, reducing reliance on extended written or verbal directions. Allow students to demonstrate their understanding of design choices through oral explanation or drawing rather than written documentation alone. Breaking the multi-week design cycle into clearly labeled checkpoints with a visual progress tracker can help students manage the long arc of the project. Offering a scribe or speech-to-text option during reflection and documentation portions ensures that challenges with written output do not limit a student's ability to communicate strong engineering thinking.
Section 504
Ensure that workspace materials are organized and accessible to reduce distraction during hands-on construction and testing phases. Provide extended time during design documentation and any written reflection components, and allow the student to respond orally when written output creates a barrier to demonstrating understanding. Preferential seating near the teacher during whole-class design discussions supports focus and engagement throughout the multi-week unit.
ELL / MLL
Introduce and preview key vocabulary related to joints, support, constraints, and engineering design using labeled diagrams and images of knee anatomy and brace components before instruction begins. Provide simplified, visual directions for each phase of the design-and-build process so students can follow along without relying solely on English text. Encouraging students to sketch and label their design ideas in their home language first, then translate key terms, supports conceptual understanding while language skills continue to develop.
At Risk (RTI)
Connect the purpose of the knee brace to students' prior experiences with injuries, sports, or caring for others to build meaningful entry points into the unit. Simplify early design tasks by narrowing material choices or providing a partially completed model that students can observe and then modify, reducing the open-endedness that can feel overwhelming. Frequent, brief check-ins during construction and testing phases allow the teacher to affirm progress, redirect misunderstandings early, and help students experience success before moving to more complex iterations.
Gifted & Talented
Encourage students to investigate real-world biomedical design constraints beyond those provided in the kit, such as researching how professional orthotists balance patient comfort with clinical function or how materials science influences device design. Students might be challenged to add an additional design criterion of their own — such as waterproofing or adjustability — and justify it using reasoning grounded in how the knee actually moves. Inviting these students to document their design process with the rigor of an engineering journal, including hypothesis-driven testing and quantitative comparisons across iterations, deepens engagement with the engineering design cycle at an advanced level.