On July 2, 2021, Mitsubishi Motors Corporation (MMC) hosted online workshop at MMC site for the second graders at Azuma Gakuen Tsukuba Municipal Azuma Junior High School in Tsukuba City, Ibaraki Prefecture (8th graders at Azuma Gakuen, combination of primary school and junior high school). On the workshop day, the students, who had worked on the worksheet to design "Future Vehicle" in advance, joined the meeting via web meeting system "Teams". After joining company introduction session and lectures on how to design vehicles at MMC (product planning), they made presentations about "Future Vehicles".
■Feedback from the students
- It was great because we could get to the bottom of the way vehicles are planned to the point where we rarely have an opportunity to reach. I am amazed how innovatively advanced modern vehicles are.
- I learned the variety of people who are involved in the process of automobile industry starting from design to sales and what kind of creative ideas they have.
- I learned many surprises about vehicles that I had not known before.
- he workshop got me more interested in work process.
■Comment from the Teachers of Azuma Gakuen Tsukuba Municipal Azuma Junior High School, Ibaraki Prefecture
It looks that lectures and hands-on experiences directly from corporate employees were stimulating for the students. In particular, they were so excited over comments given by the employees those actually involved in product planning after the presentation that they were bouncing various ideas of vehicles off even after the class ended.
■Comment from employee who gave lecture
Through this workshop, the participating junior high school students went through the product planning process of vehicles under the theme "Future Vehicles You Want" by putting together important ideas in planning vehicles from perspectives such as who the vehicle is for, the situation where the vehicle is used, what kind of features it has and when the vehicle will be available. Each group gave serious consideration to how the future vehicles should be from the point of junior high school students and made wonderful presentations full of dreams. Many presentations seemed to have been inspired by innovative ideas that we would not be able to think of and the workshop was a great stimulation for MMC employees in charge of product planning.