Constructions and Creations: Sturdy Structures

Sure, you may be able to build a better mousetrap, but what about a gum dispenser? In a fun engineering challenge, teams must design and build a working interactive gumball machine with specific constraints and criteria.

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...

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...

It's time to soak up the sun! Youngsters read about active and passive solar heating systems, then they collaborate to create a miniature solar-heated building. Provide a variety of materials for them to incorporate and watch their...

Teams design and build a windmill, under budget, that can lift an object. The groups evaluate and reflect on their own design, then on those produced by other teams. The goal is to determine which design is the most...

Take your class on an out-of-this-world adventure with this fun engineering design lesson. Working in small groups, young scientists design, build, and test crew exploration vehicles using some creativity, teamwork, and...

After reading about how wind turbines work to collect clean energy, groups brainstorm and design their own windmill. Within the provided financial and physical constraints, groups must build a working windmill using only the materials...

Clever! Participants don square-foot cardboard shoes to mark out the rain garden plot that they have spent the last few weeks designing. In this way, they are practicing scale modeling as well! Note that this lesson is part of a unit,...

Engineering design projects serve as great opportunities for collaborative problem solving. In this case, students work in small groups designing, building, and eventually testing a structure that meets a teacher-specified objective. It...

How do the computers keep it straight? Using the provided algorithms, class members draw a line and a circle using pixels. They then check the drawings using a straight edge and compass to determine the accuracy of their...