Today we make the feeder you planned. Open the Design Brief you sketched earlier in this project. What is the one job this feeder must do for Irish garden birds such as a robin or a blue tit? Next session we test it; today we make something real enough to try.

Engineers build a prototype first: a rough working model they can test. Your Design Brief is the labelled plan that guides the build. If making shows a better way, that is a design change: write it down, do not hide it.

As you build, watch whether the materials make you change the plan, and write that change down if they do.

Before we build: scissors stay closed when you walk; only an adult makes hard cuts in bottles; wash hands after handling bird seed. Trays are coming out now. When yours arrives, check you have a bottle, string, sticks, sticky tape, and a little seed for a dry test fill later.

Build your feeder from the Design Brief so a robin or blue tit could reach the seed from the perch. Rough is fine: engineers learn by making. Start with the bottle body, then add the seed opening, the perch and a way to hang or stand it. Ask an adult for any hard cut. If you change the plan, say why out loud so you can write it later.

Your feeder is built, so now you check it against the plan you started from, because the thing that comes out of the materials is rarely exactly the thing on the page. Work through the check on the card with your group, and be honest about what moved: a part that changed because the bottle or the stick made you change it is useful evidence for the test session, not a mistake.