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.
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Toxic Popcorn Design Challenge
Engineering enthusiasts are sure to explode in understanding as they practice the engineering design process (EDP). A container of "toxic popcorn" is placed in the classroom. Teams must work together to devise a method for removing it...
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Dispenser Designs
After reading about the history of tape dispensers, learners compare and contrast different dispenser designs. Next, teams work within budgetary and time constraints to design a better dispenser. When finished, each engineer reflects on...
Roald Dahl
Roald Dahl Matilda Lesson Plans
Fifty eye-catching pages contain six lessons about Roald Dahl's novel, Matilda. Each lesson has a theme and covers a different subject—literacy, social-emotional learning, science, and geography. Scholars analyze characters, examine...
Curated OER
Design in Production
Students are introduced to product design. In this social studies and technology lesson plan, students examine the historical role of mass production in the development of American business and industry and then apply their knowledge in...
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Tennis Anyone?
After reading up on the history of sports racquets, engineering teams design and construct a racquet for batting a Velcro-striped ball at a target. Teams evaluate their design by aiming for the target three times each and answering...
Teach Engineering
Storing Android Accelerometer Data: App Design
There's an app for that! Pupils learn to build an app that will store data on an Android. The lesson introduces class members to the tiny database, TinyDB, for Android devices. A video tutorial provides an example that uses the TinyDB in...
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...
Teach Engineering
Design Step 2: Research the Problem
How do you get started designing a product to meet your engineering design goals? Here, learners gain understanding of an important aspect of the engineering design process: background research. Through brainstorming and worksheets,...
Teach Engineering
Design a Flying Machine
Wrap up the unit in one final design. Pairs use their knowledge of aviation to design new flying machines and record how their designs take into consideration the forces that act upon airplanes. The pupils determine whether their designs...
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 lesson walks them through the process of evaluating it step-by-step....
Discovery Education
Market Research and Design: The Headphone Challenge
Watch augmented reality bring classrooms to life. Scholars work in groups to design, build, and market a new pair of headphones meant for children under three. They use an augmented reality app to show their headphones in action as they...
NASA
Engineering Design for Human Exploration
What would it take to live on the lunar surface? Small groups build model rockets in order to simulate launching a habitat into space and rebuilding it. Divide the class into groups to design and build a model of a lunar habitat. The...
Teach Engineering
Life Cycles
Breathe some life into product design. Pupils learn about the stages of product creation, use, and disposal—sometimes called a cradle-to-grave assessment. They see how this cycle relates to the life cycle of organisms.
Perkins School for the Blind
Design and Problem Solving
What if you had a design problem you wanted to solve, but were unable to draw because you were unable to see? Teach your learners with visual impairments that they can use Wikki Stix®, a braille ruler, Legos®, and Constructo Straws to...
American Physiological Society
Sit On It
How do product designers come up with the variety of things we see in stores and on TV every day? They identify a need, then create something that meets that need. Sounds simple, right? A two-week lesson puts seventh graders in that role...
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Ship the Chip
Here is a tasty challenge, especially for middle school engineers: design a container that meets mass and volume criteria, and will safely transport a tortilla or potato chip through the mail without damaging it! Mostly, this is a crisp...
Curated OER
Cell Wall Recipe: A Lesson on Biofuels
Biotech engineers discover that changes in the DNA code for cell wall formation can help create crops better suited for biofuel production. They extract DNA from wheat germ. They decode paper strips with codes and relate the activity to...
Curated OER
Logo Design Basics: Your Name Here
Young scholars become familiar with the fundamentals of graphic design to develop a logo. In this logo design lesson, students generate their own two logos using their own name and a personal hobby as inspiration. Young scholars select...
Rochester Institue of Technology
Ergonomic Design
To an engineer, the glass is never half full; it's just double the necessary size. The fifth installment of a nine-part technology and engineering series teaches pupils about the idea of ergonomic design. Measurements of popliteal height...
Teach Engineering
Design Inspired by Nature
Let nature guide your engineering designs. By taking apart a flower, pupils learn about reverse engineering. They use the results to brainstorm designs for new products or ideas. This is the seventh installment of a nine-part Life...
Code.org
Introducing Design Mode
Move beyond buttons when designing user interfaces. In the fourth installment of a 21-part unit, young computer scientists learn to apply design mode, which gives users options for colors, fonts, etc. They learn to incorporate these...
Code.org
Practice PT - Design a Digital Scene
The final performance task for the unit requires class members to utilize what they have learned to create a personal digital scene. Groups work together to develop a scene and then, using top-down design, break the scene into manageable...
Curated OER
Design Your Own Building
Learners explore the use of design principles in the real world. They evaluate how problems can be solved using design principles. In groups, students design the floor plan for a building of their choice.