One assignment I have my Tech Design students do in grade 12 is to design a futuristic bus shelter for the town we live in.
They do design sketches and preliminary research on existing bus shelter design. Their design must meet a set of requirements including fitting within a set footprint as well as allow for payment options other than cash or tokens to the driver.
Final designs are modeled in Sketch-up and are then presented to the class via projector.
It's a fun assignment which stretches their creativity while using something they are familiar with. I've included example images of one of the better presented designs.
