Use of personal knowledge of 8-year-old students in creative solving of technical tasks

Arranging tasks at the level of device design is an important part of supporting children's mental development in technical education classes. Due to little interest in this area of education, there is little research on children's task-solving skills in device design (por. Furmanek, 2007, part 1). This paper presents the situation of solving, by 8-year-old pupils, a task involving the use of a turnstile mechanism to design a device that sends planes into the air. The investigation showed that pupils make strong use of familiar devices (e.g. lift, crane) in designing the device. Referring to the names of the devices, they easily communicate with each other, and when designing a common structure, they complete their ideas and evaluate their practicality. Group creation of a new device is creative and stimulates children's thinking.