MYP Design Planning Resources, Time and Cost Notes

Parts List First, Time Plan Second

1. Criterion C asks for a plan that considers time, resources and materials together, because a time plan built without knowing the parts is a guess.
2. A cutting list is the workshop version of a parts list: every piece you will cut, with length, width, thickness, quantity and material.
3. A cutting list for a stool reads like "4 legs, 320 x 30 x 30 mm, pine" and "2 rails, 260 x 60 x 18 mm, pine".
4. A bill of materials goes wider, because it also holds the things you never cut, such as 16 No.8 screws, 30 ml of PVA and two sheets of 180 grit paper.
5. Digital projects have a bill of materials too, listing the fonts, stock photographs, sound effects, a domain name and any software licence the build depends on.

Work Out What You Buy, Not What You Use

1. Your cutting list gives the sizes of the parts, while stock sizes decide what you actually have to buy.
2. Pine is sold in 2.4 m lengths and MDF in 2440 x 1220 mm sheets, so four 320 mm legs come comfortably out of one 1.5 m offcut.
3. Add a cutting allowance of about 5 mm per cut, since a tenon saw removes roughly 1 mm of material as sawdust and marking out needs a little slack.
4. Sketch a cutting plan onto a scale outline of the sheet to see how the parts nest, which regularly saves a whole extra sheet.
5. Round every order up to whole units, because no supplier will sell you 0.4 of a sheet of 3 mm acrylic.
6. Add around 10% spare on consumables like PLA filament, glue and abrasive paper, since running out halfway through a lesson stops the whole process.

Costing Is Arithmetic, and It Has to Be Traceable

1. Cost each line as unit price multiplied by quantity, then total the column, so anyone reading the folder can follow the figure.
2. Use real prices from a named supplier and write the source beside the price, for example "3 mm clear acrylic, 600 x 400 mm, £4.80".
3. Where you use part of a sheet, cost the part you use and say so, such as a third of a £9 sheet costed at £3.
4. School stock is not free, so ask your teacher for a rate or use a supplier price rather than leaving the cost column blank.
5. Compare the total against any budget in your design specification, because a £40 solution against a £25 limit has already failed a specification point.

A Gantt Chart Turns Steps Into Dates

1. A Gantt chart lists your tasks down the left and the lessons or weeks across the top, with a bar showing when each task runs.
2. Estimate each task in the unit you actually work in, which in most schools means lessons of 50 or 60 minutes rather than abstract hours.
3. Bars are allowed to overlap where two things genuinely happen at once, such as PVA curing in the clamps while you sand the lid.
4. Mark milestones as diamonds at fixed points like "all parts cut" or "first user test", so any slip shows up the week it happens.
5. Shade each bar in as you finish the task, which turns the chart into a record of what happened instead of a picture drawn once in week one.
6. A spreadsheet with one column per lesson and a filled cell for each planned block gives you a usable chart in about ten minutes.

Shared Equipment Is the Real Constraint

1. One laser cutter and one 3D printer usually serve a whole class, so machine time is rationed rather than available whenever you want it.
2. A 60 mm bracket printed at 0.2 mm layer height can take three hours, longer than any lesson, so it has to start at the beginning of one and be collected in the next.
3. Book machine slots in advance and write the booked date straight into the Gantt chart rather than keeping it in your head.
4. Line up another job for every machine wait, so a queue for the laser cutter turns into sanding time instead of dead time.
5. Ask the technician which materials are already in stock, because ordering something unusual can add a week nobody planned for.
6. Anything that depends on another person, such as a client interview or a teacher sign-off, goes in the plan at least two lessons before you need the answer.

When the Numbers Do Not Work, Change the Plan Early

1. If the total runs over budget, swap material before you cut anything, for example 6 mm MDF at around £6 a sheet instead of 6 mm birch ply at around £22.
2. If the time plan runs past the deadline, cut scope rather than quality, such as building three drawer units well instead of five badly.
3. Write down the swap and the reason at the moment you make it, because a planned reduction reads as good management while a half-finished build reads as poor planning.
4. Re-total the bill of materials after any swap, so the costing in your folder describes the thing you actually built.