Creativity Challenge: Dragon's Den

I wanted to start off my first Creativity Challenge post with a project that all students have been working on for the past couple of weeks.  Somehow, we got talking about Dragon's Den one day and I noticed that surprising amount of students had watched the show before.  They really seemed to like it, too!  So, I decided to give everyone the task of creating an invention. 

We started off by creating a check list, together, of all the important information to have about our inventions, as well as the criteria for each of those pieces of information.  Here it is:

Once that was complete, the students could refer back to their own copy of this checklist to ensure that their project was complete in the end.  Other than having the checklist to follow, the students were free to create what they wanted and could present their information however they like.  Some are doing prezis and SMART Notebook presentations, and others are making posters!  

Unlike Dragon's Den, the inventions don't have to be realistic.  I have a student who is creating a "sac à dos à trou noir" (a black hole backpack) that can carry as much stuff as you want and always have space for more!  His description of his product is so over the top and detailed, and I love it!  I don't know if the Wealthy Barber would go for it, but I'm so pleased!  

Here he is!

Making a black hole!

I have another student who is creating a portable MINI mini golf game.  She is in the process of making her own model of the game.

Still a work in progress.

This project is even engaging the girls in my class who want to talk about One Direction and nothing else.  Their love for this boy band is hilarious, yet very intense...  They even have One Direction cards with pictures of the boys' different body parts and you have guess who's body part is on each card...  Very bizarre.  Anyway, one of the girls has created a set of One Direction dolls that sing, and you can sing with them.  When you sing, you can turn on a button on the back of the doll's head to turn on a video camera that records you singing (video and audio).  She is so invested in her creation that she asks regularly when we will be working on our Dragon's Den projects!

Another student created a flying train.  Like I said, the inventions don't have to be realistic and he can make a miniature model of his creation.  But at this point, who cares if it's realistic.  This student is fully invested in a task that gets him talking, writing, drawing and thinking...  IN FRENCH...  About something he cares about and is interested in!

That's all for now!  Stay tuned for some finished products in the next couple of weeks!