New Zealand Scholarship Technology cheat sheet

Technology scholarship rewards analysis of the interdependence between the made world, human needs and the natural environment, not description of a single product.

The technology process is iterative, not linear: brief, research, ideation, prototyping, testing, evaluation and refinement loop back as evidence changes.

Fitness for purpose is judged against an explicitly stated brief with measurable specifications; a solution that meets its specs but not its stakeholders' needs fails the brief.

Stakeholder analysis distinguishes primary users, secondary users, wider affected parties and the client; conflicting needs must be identified and resolved with justification.

The three components of technological practice are technological modelling, technological products and technological systems; scholarship answers should show how these interact.

Intervention by design is the central scholarship idea: every technological outcome changes what people can do, and those consequences must be predicted and evaluated.

A defensible justification links evidence (test data, user feedback, standards) to decisions, and states trade-offs that were accepted and why.

Innovation is distinguished from invention: invention is a novel concept, innovation is a concept successfully implemented and adopted in context.

Material selection is argued from properties (strength-to-weight, thermal, durability, workability) mapped to function, cost and lifecycle impact, not from preference.

Functional modelling tests whether a concept works (behaviour, forces, energy); prototyping tests whether it can be made and used as intended.

Evidence hierarchy: controlled measurement > repeated user trial > expert judgement > untested assumption; scholarship answers should name the level of evidence used.

Trials need a stated success criterion before testing; post-hoc criteria are not evidence of fitness for purpose.

Failure analysis is valued: identifying the mode of failure (material, user error, system, interface) and the design change that follows shows critical thinking.

Lifecycle thinking covers extraction, manufacture, distribution, use and end-of-life; the greatest impact often occurs in a stage the designer does not control.

Risk assessment in technology uses likelihood x consequence, with controls applied in order: eliminate, substitute, engineer out, administrate, then personal protective equipment.

A system is analysed as input, process, output and feedback; faults are traced to a component, a connection or a control loop.

Evaluation must compare the outcome with the original brief and with a plausible alternative that was rejected, explaining why the chosen path was better.

Ethical reasoning in technology weighs safety, privacy, equity of access, cultural impact and sustainability, and states which value prevails when they conflict.