Zimbabwe Form 1-4 Design and Technology

This course integrates scientific, technological, engineering, and mathematical (STEM) principles with design processes. It aims to equip learners with practical skills, knowledge, and attitudes relevant to various industries, further studies, and self-reliance. The curriculum emphasizes problem-solving, creativity, innovation, and invention for the cultural and economic well-being of society.

Form 1

• Health and Safety: Focuses on workshop safety, including regulations, precautions with tools and basic machines, fire drills, first aid, and waste disposal.
• Product Design: Introduces the history of design and technology, the design process, and related career opportunities. Learners identify needs, develop design specifications, generate solutions, create artifacts, and evaluate their final products.
• Material Science: Explores different types of materials (plastics, wood, metals, composites, textiles, food, clay), their properties, and uses.
• Systems and Control: Covers design and construction of systems, mechanisms, structures, electronics, and services. Learners also study energy sources and safety precautions.
• Engineering Science: Introduces engineering calculations, units of measurement (length, mass, volume), and the concept of moments of forces.
• Tools and Equipment: Classifies and demonstrates the use of measuring, marking out, holding, supporting, precision, and impelling tools.
• Manufacturing: Introduces various manufacturing processes such as casting, molding, forming, machining, fabrication, spinning, weaving, and shaping.
• Design Drawings: Covers drawing principles, conventions (lines, tone, color, texture, patterns, lettering), freehand sketching, computer sketching, and geometrical constructions (angles, triangles, quadrilaterals, circles).
• Enterprise Skills: Explores environmental and social responsibility (deforestation, reforestation, recycling), different forms of energy, and aesthetics, including applying appropriate finishes to products and selecting materials.

Form 2

• Health and Safety: Expands on safety considerations for different power sources, first aid procedures, safe use and handling of tools, equipment, and materials, and proper storage practices.
• Product Design: Learners apply the design process to community-based projects.
• Material Science: Examines the physical, mechanical, and chemical properties of various materials.
• Systems and Control: Covers joining and assembly methods (adhesives, fasteners), visual communication (graphic design, color systems, signs, and symbols), and structures and mechanisms.
• Engineering Science: Focuses on calculations related to machines, including ratio, speed, pulleys, gears, velocity ratio, and mechanical advantage.
• Tools and Equipment: Explores the use and maintenance of holding, supporting, impelling, and percussion tools and equipment.
• Manufacturing: Expands on different manufacturing processes and the steps involved, including flow diagrams, inputs, outputs, transformation, and the role of planning.
• Design Drawings: Covers geometrical constructions of polygons and different types of projections (perspective, isometric, oblique, orthographic).
• Enterprise Skills: Introduces ergonomics and anthropometry in design and allows learners to undertake design projects, analyzing the relevance of function and aesthetics.

Form 3

• Health and Safety: Covers workshop accidents and treatments, fire drills, and the proficient use of machines, equipment, and precision instruments.
• Product Design: Learners apply the design process to solve problems and add value to the community, create mock-ups and prototypes, and test feasibility.
• Material Science: Explores the production processes of various materials (wood, plastics, metals, composites, textiles, food).
• Systems and Control: Covers power sources for mechanical systems, energy costs, and testing and evaluation of finished products for stress and strain.
• Engineering Science: Focuses on calculations involving bills of quantities, costing, efficiency, friction, trigonometry, pressure, and heat.
• Tools and Equipment: Covers the use and maintenance of tools, equipment, and machines, including sharpening, lubrication, and routine and preventative maintenance systems.
• Manufacturing: Introduces industrial plant layouts (product line, process/functional, fixed position, combination) and their advantages and disadvantages.
• Design Drawings: Covers production drawings (component, sections, assembly, parts lists, presentation, exploded views, developments, proportion) and introduces computer-aided drawing (CAD) software.
• Enterprise Skills: Explores marketing strategies, advertising, branding, and packaging.

Form 4

• Health and Safety: Focuses on hazardous substances, their safe handling and storage.
• Product Design: Learners produce and interpret data, plan production, suggest improvements and modifications, apply the design process to community-based problems, and understand anthropometrics and ergonomics in design, including CAD/CAM and costing. They also manage design projects, including scheduling, resource planning, and monitoring.
• Material Science: Learners identify different forms and shapes of materials, test their properties (malleability, hardness, conductivity, tenacity, moisture content), and apply suitable finishes (electroplating, painting, polishing, coating, garnishing, vanishing).
• Systems and Control: Covers levers, cranks, linkages, types of motion, hydraulics, pneumatics, gear mechanisms (rack and pinion, worm drives, bevel gears, spur gears), gear ratios, transmission speed, and drivers, belts, and chains.
• Engineering Science: Focuses on calculations involving work, power, energy, electricity, stress, and strain, producing bills of quantities and costing projects.
• Tools and Equipment: Covers the proficient use and maintenance of tools, equipment, and machines.
• Manufacturing: Explores different manufacturing systems (mass production, batch production, job shop production, project) and their advantages, disadvantages, and uses.
• Design Drawings: Covers producing sections, developments, presentation, and assembly drawings using CAD software.
• Enterprise Skills: Learners assess market forces, the role of technology in product design, critique and test products, evaluate finished products against specifications, and understand patenting and intellectual property rights. They also register products for patenting.