TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Obi Wan Adobe: Engineering for Strength
Students conduct an experiment to determine how varying the composition of a construction material affects its strength. They make several adobe bricks with differing percentages of sand, soil, fibrous material and water. They test the...
Technovation
Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Engineer a Safe Stopping Robot
A challenge for students to design and engineer a robot that turns itself off when it leaves a safe area. This challenge contains tips, a lesson plan, and a place for students to document their engineering design process.
Technovation
Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Engineer an Automated Wrapping Machine
On this site, find a challenge to design and build a machine that can make plane fuselage by wrapping a mold just like Boeing's carbon fiber placement machines. While working on the challenge, students will find a lesson plan, tips, and...
Technovation
Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Engineer a Fuel Level Detector
This site contains a challenge for students to engineer a sensor that can detect how much fuel is in your tank. The site also contains tips, a lesson plan, and a place for students to document their engineering design process.
Technovation
Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Engineer an Electronic Water Level Detector
Make a device that will notify people when the water level drops in this challenge. Students will do this by building an open circuit that completes when the water level drops below a certain level and/or goes above a certain level. The...
Technovation
Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Engineer a Self Deploying Device
Construct a device that opens up when thrown into the air on this website. The website also includes tips, a lesson plan, and a place for students to document their engineering design process.
Technovation
Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Engineer an Airfoil
Do you know how an airplane flys? Use this challenge to learn about flight by building a wing that can generate lift from a fan while carrying weight. Find details about the challenge, tips, and a lesson plan on this site. Also, students...
Technovation
Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Engineer a Skyscraper for the Wind
A challenge for students to build a skyscraper that stands strong in the wind and is at least 18 inches tall. This challenge includes tips, a lesson plan, and a place for students to document their engineering design process.
Technovation
Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Engineer a Bird Beak
In this challenge, students will construct a beak that will allow them to pick up as much food as possible in one try without using their hands. This website includes the challenge, tips, a lesson plan, and a place for students to...
Technovation
Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Engineer a Space Tool
Using common household items, make a tool that an astronaut could use to pick up an object in space. This site also includes tips, lesson plans, and a place for students to document their engineering design process.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Groundwater Detectives
Student teams locate a contaminant spill in a hypothetical site by measuring the pH of soil samples. Then they predict the direction of groundwater flow using mathematical modeling. They also use the engineering design process to come up...
Technovation
Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Engineer an Exoskeleton
This site challenges students to build a wearable device that will detect when your body moves. The site contains tips, a lesson plan, and a place for students to document their engineering design process.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Simulation in Healthcare
Students learn how engineering design is applied to solve healthcare problems by using an engineering tool called simulation. While engineering design is commonly used to study and design everything from bridges, factories, airports to...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Design Step 4: Engineering Analysis
Engineering analysis distinguishes true engineering design from "tinkering." In this activity, students are guided through an example engineering analysis scenario for a scooter. Then they perform a similar analysis on the design...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Design Step 2: Research the Problem
Through Internet research, patent research, standards and codes research, user interviews (if possible) and other techniques (idea web, reverse engineering), students further develop the context for their design challenge. In subsequent...
Other
Ontario Council for Technology Education: Designing and Testing a Crane [Pdf]
By the end of this project, students will be familiar with the 6 different simple machines and will be able to identify how these machines are used in products and tools they use on a daily basis. They will investigate how mechanical...
Other
Ontario Council for Technology Education: Designing a Bus Shelter [Pdf]
By the end of this project, the student will be able to understand and work through the stages of the design process, assess and develop design criteria when creating concept and scaled sketches, and use computer design software...
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: Hedy Lamarr: Engineering and Invention
Discover Hedy Lamarr's contributions as a woman in STEM in this video from the American Masters film, Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story. Lamarr has received belated acknowledgement for inventing frequency hopping, the basis of secure...
Better Lesson
Better Lesson: Introducing Engineering
There is something gross under the cafeteria table. Do you pick it up? Gross! How about we mimic a bird's beak to solve the problem of picking up our trash? This lesson models walking through the first few steps of the Engineering Design...
Thinkport Education
Thinkport: Water, Water, Everywhere: The Engineering Design Process
Students brainstorm new ideas during part of the engineering process of designing a water purification system.
CK-12 Foundation
Ck 12: Physical Science: Technological Design Process
[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] Technological design and steps of the technological design process.
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: The Design Process: Creating a Stronger Truss
This is an interesting project that explores which geometrical shapes make the strongest bridge truss structures. It is a good introduction to the engineering design process. You'll design three different trusses, and use online...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Design Inspired by Nature
Students discover how engineers can use biomimicry to enhance their designs. They learn how careful observation of nature can lead to new innovations and products. In this activity, students reverse engineer a flower to glean design...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Paper Drop Design Competition
Using paper, paper clips and tape, student teams design flying devices to (1) stay in the air as long as possible and (2) land as close as possible to a given target. Student teams will use the engineering design process to guide them...