KIT BRANCA

In secondary schools and educational centres, teachers and students need flexible solutions for displaying work, raising awareness in public spaces, creating photo sets, or designing settings. However, the lack of versatile, easy-to-assemble structures limits these possibilities. The challenge of this project was to develop a construction system that would adapt to a variety of educational situations and encourage creativity in the classroom.

To meet this need, in collaboration with teachers from various educational centres in the Valencian Community, Makea designed Kit BRANCA, a modular system for building lightweight structures. Its design allows for simple and flexible assembly, making it easy to adapt to different uses within the educational field.

This project, promoted by the ISCOD Foundation, was developed jointly with the educational community to ensure that it responded to the real needs of students and teachers.

The process began with working sessions in which the needs of the different training cycles were grouped and analysed. Based on this analysis, the basic concepts of the system were defined, which were then tested in the field with teachers and students from four vocational training centres: Image and Sound Cycle at IES la Marxadella (Torrent) and IES Henri Matisse (Paterna), the Environmental Education and Control Cycle at IES El Saler (El Saler) and the Tourism Cycle at CIPFP Mislata (Mislata).

Throughout the process, four key principles were established for the development of the BRANCA Kit:

• Modularity: an adaptable system that can be adjusted to various educational situations that arise in schools.
• Creativity and versatility: composed of wooden bars and metal connectors that can be used to creatively build lightweight structures for displaying projects, stage sets, and information spaces, among other things.
• Flexibility and expansion: combinable with other materials and adaptable to the resources of each centre.
• Teaching approach: a tool that encourages creativity, collaboration and learning through experimentation.

The BRANCA Basic kit includes a cloth bag with 28 circular beech wood slats in different sizes, along with a set of 28 metal fittings that allow for XY and XYZ axis joints. In addition, an instruction manual printed on recycled paper and several video tutorials were provided to guide assembly and explore its possibilities.

The system can be expanded with more slats and other fittings that allow for other types of connections, as well as with other elements such as wooden boards, cellular polycarbonate or metal, communication canvases, among others, which complement and expand the possibilities of the system.

The BRANCA Kit has become an innovative teaching resource that allows educational centres to work creatively on building temporary structures. Its modular and reusable design facilitates the self-construction of exhibition spaces, stage sets and informational elements, promoting student autonomy and fostering key skills in the educational curriculum.

* If you are a representative of an educational centre and are interested in incorporating the BRANCA Kit into your work with students in the classroom, please contact us and we will provide you with information on how to obtain a kit. Write to us at hello@makeatuvida with the subject line “I need a BRANCA Kit”.