Inventions 2: The Impact

Creating buildings that reach hundreds of feet into the sky is no easy task. The third instructional activity in this series begins with four activities that engage young architects in exploring the major challenges that are faced when...

Using popsicle sticks and glue, groups must work together to design and build a bridge that can support weight and is aesthetically pleasing. The lesson begins by learners reading about different features of bridge architecture, followed...

The best inventions come from a problem that needs to be solved! Given a container with holes in...

Make a robot that moves like a living creature using a microcontroller, motors, and mechanisms with this challenge. Also, on this challenge find a lesson plan, tips, and a place for students to document their engineering design process.

If you don't know that the incandescent light was a failure before it was a success, it's easy to write off some modern energy innovations like solar panels because they haven't hit the big time fast enough. Worse, the fairy-tale view of...

Children's imaginations are infinite - so could they help draw up the ambitious projects that we need to fight the world's challenges? A group was asked to design inventions to make society a better place. Here's how they responded.

Throughout time, innovators have taken basic ideas and changed them into creative and cutting-edge designs. Kids tackle the topic of innovations in relation to traditional or creative objects. They discuss traditional Navajo pottery then...

This article profiles a young woman named Ann Makosinski who has been hailed as a 'child prodigy' for her toy inventions that use renewable energy. She earlier invented, for example, a flashlight that is powered by heat from the hand and...

After discussing important flying inventions, students explore technological design by making paper airplanes.

Students research and learn about the history of transportation. Groups design and present a decade in transportation exhibits to share with the class.