This has been hailed by parents as the best lesson they have seen.  Getting your students to understand it is okay to fail is going to be your biggest challenge.  Show them how professionals deal with it every day and allow your students to explore their own failures.  Show them failures should be embraced and even celebrated.

• Failure Questionnaire

Time: 1 Hour

No Supplies Required

Engineering is problem solving, plain and simple.  However, how you solve the problem requires information, analysis, and the ability to see where the problem lies.  This unit allows students to explore how this can be done with a simple stress test that will get your students up and moving.  The problems come up during this assignment are real.  How would could they be solved?  What technology already solves them?

• Stress Analysis/Data Analysis

Time: 4-7 Hours

No Supplies Required

Communication is not just spoken and this unit hammers it home.  Students must use technical drawings, technical reports, and an oral presentation to show how they are adept at all facets of Engineering communication.

• Technical Writing-Directions
• Technical Reports-
• Oral Presentations

Time: 6-9 Hours

No Supplies Required

Taking up where the last unit left off, now the student is ready to communicate using drawings.  The following lessons give the student a wide array of practice in how they can show what their design should look like.  These two units form the basis of how students should communicate their ideas through their resume worthy work.

• Lesson 1: Sketching Challenge
• Lesson 2: Equipment Use #1
• Lesson 3: Equipment Use #2
• Lesson 4: Yellow Block Drafting Plate #1
• Lesson 5: Blue Drafting Plate #2
• Lesson 6: Green and Violet Drafting Plate #3
• Lesson 7: Red & Orange Drafting Plate #4
• Lesson 8: Pastel Yellow V-Block and Pastel Blue Angle Block Plate Lesson
• Lesson 9: Pastel Green & Pastel Violet Plate

8-10 Hours

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Product testing and planning and succeeding does not sound like important units.  However, students will be exposed to product testing, skills of a Systems Engineer, and an Experimental Drug Developer through this unit.  Not to mention the fun of playing with products and telling the class about what they learned

• Rating Consumer Products Assignment
• Planning and Succeeding Assignment

5-11 Hours

No Supplies Required

Input, process, output, and feedback is the corner stone of what an Engineer does in testing the solutions they are working.  Technical and Engineering Communication is reinforced here as students must defend their solution to the class.

• Systems and Optimization Activity 1: System Loops
• Systems and Optimization Activity 2: Material Systems Dissection

6-8 Hours

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This unit includes simple experiments for students that Illustrate how pressure distributes itself in a closed system.  Students also work to determine ratios between similar and dissimilar volumes acting on one another.

• Pneumatics experiments
• Hydraulics experiments

4 Hours

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By examining Moore’s Law as the example in this unit, students gain valuable experience and knowledge in the world of Computer Engineering, Electronics Designing, and how to be a better consumer when it comes to buying such products.

• Moore’s Law

4-7 Hours

No Supplies Required

Bridges, the oldest form of Engineering there is.  How does one get from here to there safely?  West Point Bridge Builder is a joy to play with, and with it, students explore the world of Civil Engineering, Construction, and Welding.  How we save water in the age of global warming could not be more topical.

• Bridge Designer
• How Can We Save Water? 

6-10 Hours

No Supplies Required

Exploring what makes a ground breaking Engineer historical is great fun, especially when you have the students build the very thing their chosen Engineer is famous for.

• History and Evolution of Engineering Activity

4-5 Hours

No Supplies Required

Honda has a saying, wait until someone gets half-way up the ladder, then kick it out from underneath them.  Why?  To get them to think differently.  We suggest this unit as you start your new semester, try something different.

• Kick Out the Ladder

1 Hour

No Supplies Required

Creating a display of what to recycle is a simple way to have students to experience what a Materials Engineer does, what a Chemist may be concerned with, and what a construction worker will deal with as students explore the materials brought from home.  How do they recycle the items in their home?  What is the proper way to do it?  Is there a space for your class to create a place in the community to make it easier?  The choices are endless.

• Recycling Display

1-3 Hours

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How are Engineering jobs going to change in the future?  Will robots take most of the jobs out there?  How much problem solving will all jobs need now?  This is an opportunity for students to explore this question, and, possibly, see where their skills and their interests will place them in the Engineering world.

• Design and Materials Evolution

4-6 Hours

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The process of conducting an experiment is the emphasis in this unit.  Students conduct a simple experiment then compile data and comparing their results to their peers.

• Destructive Testing and Mathematical Modeling

3-6 Hours

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Everything for the year comes to a head with the designing of the Solar Car.  Groups can use their communication skills, their research skills, their teamwork, and their knowledge of history to create a design of a car that could really work.  All aspects of this unit have huge implications for the future.  Not to mention the resume worthy work this unit provides.

• Solar Car assignment

10-15 Hours

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