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Technovation
Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Build a Self Driving Car Game
Do you think you could build a game board that acts as a system of circuits to alert and navigate around obstacles? This site contains this challenge as well as a place for students to document their engineering design process, tips, and...
Technovation
Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Build a Light Dispersal System
Use this website challenges to create a way to spread light inside a house to illuminate a picture. The website also includes tips, a lesson plan, a place for students to document their engineering design process.
Technovation
Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Make Drawings of Three Dimensional Objects
Using the Glass Box Theory, students will make scaled technical drawings of 3D objects. This site includes the challenge, tips, a lesson plan, and a place for students to document their engineering design process.
Technovation
Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Make a Flat Ball
Using simple geometric shapes cut out of paper and taped together to create a ball that is as round as possible with this challenge. This page also includes a lesson plan, tips, and a place for students to document their engineering...
Technovation
Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Build a Talking Truck
On this site, you will find a challenge, a lesson plan, tips, and a place for you to document your engineering design process. Here you are challenged to build a truck that "talks" to alert when there is a problem.
Technovation
Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Build a Mighty Machine
Using just popsicle sticks, paper clips, straws, pencil, binder clips, and rubber bands, students are challenged to build a structure that jumps into the air. This mighty machine will jump up, sideways, or flips over. This website...
Technovation
Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Build a Planting Machine
A challenge that asks students to build a machine that distributes seeds precisely. This site includes a lesson plan, tips, and a place to document their engineering design process.
Technovation
Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Build a Self Powered Rocket
A challenge where students will launch a small object using a chemical reaction. The site contains tips, a lesson plan, and a place for students to document their engineering design process.
Technovation
Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Build a Water Filter
A challenge for students to build a water filter that can clean dirty water. Site includes challenge, a lesson plan, tips, and a place for students to document their engineering design process.
Technovation
Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Invent a Biobot
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.
Technovation
Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Construct a Crane
Can you build a crane that uses simple machines and mechanical advantage to move heavy objects? This website contains a challenge, tips, a lesson plan, and a place for students to document their engineering design process.
Technovation
Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Balance a Dinosaur
Using common household items, students are challenged to build a dinosaur at least 6" tall that can balance on two legs using counterbalances. This website contains the challenge, tips, a lesson plan, and a place for students to document...
Technovation
Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Build a Long Spanning Wing
Students are challenged to build a wing that can support its own weight over a span of at least two feet on this website. The website also contains a place for students to document their engineering design process, tips, and a lesson plan.
Practical Action
Practical Action: Squashed Tomato Challenge
Challenge students to take on a real-life problem affecting people in Nepal. Many farmers living on the mountainside there grow fruit and vegetables, including tomatoes. To earn a living, they need to sell these at the local market. The...
Practical Action
Practical Action: Plastics Challenge
This is a challenge for students to develop solutions to the problems caused by plastic waste globally. They will learn about how plastic waste impacts people around the world, the different types of plastic, how they are each used, how...
Practical Action
Practical Action: Beat the Flood
Flooding due to climate change can have a devastating effect on people's lives. Set on the fictitious island of Watu, pupils explore how STEM skills can be used to help communities be better prepared for flooding. Students will work as a...
Discovery Education
Discovery Education: Science of Everyday Life: The Everyday Science of Sports [Pdf]
A lesson plan where students learn about the physics behind golf balls. Students evaluate different designs of golf balls to understand how their design impacts their function. After their evaluation, students will try to improve the...
The Tech Interactive
The Tech Museum of Innovation: Save the Hiker [Pdf]
Can you build a device that will deliver life-saving treatment to someone in a hazardous situation? During this lesson, students will learn how energy is converted and transferred between objects. Working in groups and through the...
Concord Consortium
Concord Consortium: Stem Resources: Building a Zip Line
For this interactive, students plan, create, and test a zip line that will transport a hard-boiled egg without breaking it. They will make improvements on their design based on data about its performance. A motion sensor is required in...
The Tech Interactive
The Tech Interactive: Lesson Plan: Catch It if You Can! [Pdf]
Learners will learn about the ongoing issues associated with drought in California and how water conservation can be part of a solution. Students will design a rooftop water catchment system for drought-conscious Ms. Drizzle to install...
The Tech Interactive
The Tech Interactive: Lesson Plan: Save the Fruit! [Pdf]
During this math-focused unit, young scholars will create a device that is used to harvest fruit from a tree. They will then look at failure points in order to iterate their design. Finally, students will describe their device as a...
National Science Teachers Association
National Science Teachers Association: Egg Drop and Impulse
This page offers a detailed description of and a link to a set of lessons that will assist teachers in targeting NGSS standard HS-PS2-3. Students investigate momentum and impulse and are challenged to solve an engineering problem that is...
The Tech Interactive
The Tech Museum of Innovation: Bridging the Gap [Pdf]
Can your team build the appropriate bridge to fit the needs of various terrains? In this lesson, students will build an assigned bridge in order to increase knowledge of various types of bridges. Students will then engage in a design...
Discovery Education
Discovery Education: Science of Everyday Life: 3 M Wind Energy Virtual Lab
Do you think you can design a wind turbine that supplies energy to 400 homes at the highest efficiency and lowest cost? Try your hand at turbine design in this interactive activity that allows you design, build, and test a device to...