Teach Engineering
Design Step 6: Evaluate/Manufacture a Final Product
This is what all of the excitement has been building up to! Young engineers create engineering drawings, use machines to manufacture their products, test, and evaluate their designs in the last step in the engineering design process.
Teach Engineering
Design Step 5: Construct a Prototype
Enough with the talking, let's build something! In the fifth step in the engineering design process, young engineers build a prototype to test their ideas. The instructional activity walks them through the process of evaluating it...
American Chemical Society
Using the Properties of Materials to Improve a Model Boat
Work together to stay afloat. Using a paper boat, pupils connect properties of materials to their usefulness. They test different paper to determine how many pennies each boat will hold and learn that combining materials with different...
Radford University
A Place at the Table
Find a seat at the table. Learners design a non-rectangular picnic table given constraints on the number of people that should be able to sit at the table. They draw blueprints and build scale models of their tables. After researching...
Radford University
Build-a-Toy
Don't toy with using a fun lesson. Scholars design new toys and then create scale drawings. They determine the volume and surface area of the toys, and then research prices of raw materials to estimate the manufacturing costs.
Radford University
Being Green – Minimizing the Surface Area of a Soda Can
Save the world by designing a new soda can! Learners first measure the dimensions of a typical soda can and calculate its surface area and volume. They then use spreadsheet software to minimize the surface area for the volume, thus...
Radford University
Ping Pong Packing
Bounce off some ideas to reduce the amount of wasted space. Teams work together to determine the best size and shape of container to package a large order of ping pong balls. Groups are to design the container to reduce the amount of...
101 Questions
Dandy Candies
Package design is an economic necessity. Young scholars assume the role in an interesting inquiry-based lesson. Given 24 cubic shaped candies to package, they must determine the arrangement that uses the least amount of cardboard to...
DiscoverE
Textbook Support Challenge
Textbooks are heavier than a sheet of paper, so how can paper hold up a textbook? Young engineers create a structure out of paper that can support a textbook. To add another wrinkle, they must stay within budget and time constraints.
DiscoverE
Product Dissection
Sometimes, taking things apart is more fun than putting things together. Groups of learners participate in a reverse engineering activity. They dissect a device of their choosing to see how it works—great hands-on learning from the...
DiscoverE
Harmless Holder
Here's a lesson that's not for the birds! Scholars design and build packaging for soda cans that is environmentally friendly. These packages must be durable, easy to carry, and have no environmental impact.
DiscoverE
Build a Better Boomerang
This isn't the boomerang you're used to. Scholars first see how a commercial boomerang works. They then cut out a four-wing boomerang and test its flight to compare it to that of the commercial boomerang.
DiscoverE
Design a Catapult
Just this once, it's okay to throw things in class. Out of craft sticks and rubber bands, pupils build catapults to launch an object of choice. This can be a ping-pong ball, a marshmallow, or any other small item. As long as it hits the...
DiscoverE
Squishy Circuits
Make electricity flow through Play-Doh. Individuals create animals or other creatures using Play-Doh. The engineering aspect? Eyes that light up and Play-Doh that conducts electricity.
DiscoverE
Build a Pinball Game
Watch your classroom turn into an arcade. Pupils work in groups to build pinball machines from boxes and other found objects. Gamers must incorporate a variety of obstacles and launchers into the machine to see their designs in motion.
DiscoverE
Tape Dispenser Challenge
Help your class get out of a sticky situation! Future engineers explore existing tape dispensers and then design a new system for dispensing tape. To put these systems to the test, they build and evaluate prototypes of their designs.
Beyond Benign
Water Bottle Unit
How much plastic do manufacturers use to create water bottles each year? The class explores the number of water bottles used throughout the years to determine how many consumers will use in the future. Class members compare different...
Indiana Department of Education
The Represented World: Communication—Packaging
Challenge your classes to design and market a new product. Collaborative groups use geometry skills to create packaging for their products. Finally, they plan a marketing strategy to present to a marketing specialist.
Tech Museum of Innovation
Balloon Astronaut
Design protection from high-speed particles. The STEM lesson plan highlights why astronauts need protection from space debris. Pupils use the design process to design, build, and test a spacesuit that will protect a balloon from a...
Rochester Institue of Technology
Ergonomic Packing
Pupils revisit the concepts of ergonomics and order picking examined in previous lesson and use the results of a simulation to brainstorm ergonomic designs for medical supply stations.
Teach Engineering
Package Those Foods!
Designing the right package — it's more than a pretty picture. Challenge small groups to design a food package. They must consider the type of food they are packaging and the package's ability to control the physical and chemical changes...
Intel
Understanding the Design Process
Can you build a better mousetrap? Broken into two sessions, this plan introduces learners to the design process. The first session has pupils look at the world through a design perspective by redesigning everyday objects. In the second...
Discovery Education
Design a Shoe
If the shoe doesn't fit, design a new one. Discovery Education challenges pupils to put the engineering process in action by designing a shoe. Groups design and build a shoe prototype based upon the client constraints outlined in the...
Teach Engineering
Design Step 4: Engineering Analysis
What is the main difference between an engineer and a technician? This is one of the driving questions in a plan that proves that analysis at every step of development is crucial to the engineering design process. The instructional...