Teach Engineering
Protecting Our City with Levees
Teams use the design process to design, build, and test a model levee to protect the town from a wall of water. A handout provides a price list for the materials learners can use to build their levee within a budget.
DiscoverE
Build a Better Candy Bag
Every child's dream: stuffing as much candy into a bag as possible. Doing this, though, requires a nice sturdy bag. Scholars design the sturdiest bag they can and test the limits of those bag using a sweet treat!
DiscoverE
Keep-a-Cube
Waxed paper, newspaper, or aluminum foil? Keeping an ice cube from melting may require one or more of these materials. Learners design a box that will provide insulation so an ice cube stays intact for at least 90 minutes.
DiscoverE
Kinetic Sculpture
Let your creativity run wild. Scholars build a sculpture out of basic materials. These sculptures must be able to move in the wind (from an electric fan). However, they must also withstand the wind enough to not fall over—it's quite the...
James Dyson Foundation
Challenge Cards
Can you build it? Yes you can! This interactive game includes four design challenges presented on separate cards. The cards outline the challenges with limited restrictions but with an end goal in mind. The competitions include building...
Rochester Institute of Technology
Skateboard Assembly - Cycle Time
Assemble a great lesson on assembly lines. In the first installment of a nine-part technology/engineering series, future entrepreneurs learn about the manufacturing process, specifically about the assembly line and cycle time. The lesson...
DiscoverE
An Egg-Citing Ride
Wheeeee! Young thrill seekers build a bungee jump—not for themselves, though, but for an egg. The egg must fall from a height of five feet and rebound within two inches of the ground or floor.
PBS
Hidden Alarm
It's time! The fourth lesson in a five-part series has teams of scholars build a circuit for an alarm. A switch lets them turn the alarm on and off and allows them to hide the alarm—just as long as they don't hide it in the classroom!
PBS
Watercraft
Whatever floats your boat—with some additional weight. The first activity in a five-part series challenges pupils to design a boat to hold pennies. Using the design process, learners design, build, and test their boats, making sure they...
Teach Engineering
Building and Testing Model Underground Safety Caverns
Teams take their cavern designs and build a model from clay or paper mache that can be buried in sand. Testing involves dropping a bowling ball on the buried cavern. Teams dig out their cavern, inspect it for damage, and consider...
DiscoverE
Air-Powered Mini Rocket
Does the position of the clips make a difference? The activity provides directions to build and test a paper rocket. Pupils attach paper clips to the rocket in different configurations and measure the distance the rocket flies each time....
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
A Century of Plastics
After reading about polymer materials, engineer trainees examine how plastics have been integrated into everyday products. In groups, they compile a list of products made entirely without plastics and then, as a closing activity, try to...
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...
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Can You Copperplate?
Introduce emerging engineers to the process of metal plating. This resource provides background reading on chemical engineering, plating, and corrosion. It concludes with a copper plating activity. The standards alignment list includes...
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Water Rocket Launch
How do rockets fly? Teams design, build, and launch a rocket made from a two-liter bottle to explore forces on a rocket such as Newton's Laws of Motion. During the design phase, young engineers draw a diagram of their rocket and include...
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Water Fountain
Thorough instructions are given to guide you through making a demonstration hydraulic pump from two plastic soda bottles. After using the resource to teach your class about Pascal's and Bernoulli's principles, turn them loose in groups...
Curated OER
Learn to Build a Rocket in 5 Days
Young scholars explore physics by participating in an engineering activity. For this rocket lesson, students define a list of scientific vocabulary terms such as "re-engineering" and "trade-off." Young scholars identify the rocket...
Curated OER
Design and Construct a Road Sign Support
Students use simple materials to design, build, and test a model of a free-standing structure used to support overhead road signs.
Teach Engineering
Stop the Stretching
Stretch your teaching repertoire with an experiment on the elongation (stretching) and failure (break) of several materials. The point of the experiment is to design a composite material for chair webbing.
Rochester Institute of Technology
Laparoscopic Surgery
Nobody is as smart as all of us together. In a collaborative learning activity, scholars learn it takes a team to be successful in laparoscopic surgeries. Groups complete the laparoscopic task as a team and discuss their results to...
Teach Engineering
Android App Development
Building an accelerometer app for your Android device. Groups develop an app that uses the accelerometer on an Android device. The purpose of the activity is to reinforce the programming design. The post activity assessment challenges...
TryEngineering
Arduino Blink Challenge
Who knew turning a light on and off could be so complicated? In the instructional activity, pupils use Arduino boards to learn about computer codes and programs. They program an Arduino to make a light turn on and off at certain time...
Teach Engineering
Spool Racer Design and Competition
Wind it up and let it go. Individuals build a basic spool racer in the second portion of a six-part unit on energy. After receiving three criteria, pupils modify their designs to meet the new challenge. Pairs compete against each other...
DiscoverE
Emergency Shelter
Save yourself! Groups create a sturdy emergency shelter out of bamboo. The shelter must be large enough to fit one person. Now the most important question: Which member of the group gets to use the shelter in an emergency?