Materials Engineering: Designing Walls

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.

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...

To begin the learning about dams, learners read (or are read to, depending on the age group) a passage about how dams work. Next, they work in groups to use the materials provided to build a small scale working dam. After the experience,...

Construction leads to habitat loss and local wildlife suffers. Scholars must build a reptile egg incubation device that meets many constraints. Various experiments help them discover the chemical reaction needed to reach the proper...

Sound engineers investigate the structural design of a musical instrument, the recorder. They work in collaborative groups to choose an instrument to build out of everyday craft materials. It must be able to repeat a three-note sequence...

Challenge your class with this fun and engaging engineering design project. The goal, to create a brand new cereal complete with a list of ingredients, a name and logo, and a box to hold it in. Starting with a survey to determine the...

This lesson certainly will not be a drag! Little engineers design parachutes that make use of air resistance and, as a result, slow the descent of the payload as much as possible. It is an opportunity to teach about many motion concepts:...

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...

Electricity is an integral part of our daily lives, but many energy sources are damaging the environment. Young engineers read about innovations in alternative energy sources, then work in groups to design and build a model of a system...

Let's see how complicated we can make this simple task. The last activity associated with a 10-part series has groups design and build a Rube Goldberg machine. Teams determine a simple task to accomplish and use the engineering design...