This unit explores the NGSS Middle School bundle for Engineering Design (MS-ETS1-1, MS-ETS1-2, MS-ETS1-3, MS-ETS1-4) by engaging students in a Project-Based engineering task where students develop and apply their understanding of solar energy to create a solar device which can generate electricity for people who have lost power due to a natural disaster.

Working as if they were engineers, students design and construct model solar sails made of aluminum foil to move cardboard tube satellites through “space” on a string. Working in teams, they follow the engineering design thinking steps—empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test, redesign—to design and test small-scale solar sails for satellites and space probes. During the process, learn about Newton’s laws of motion and the transfer of energy from wave energy to mechanical energy. A student activity worksheet is provided.

Through hands-on group projects, students learn about the force of compression and how it acts on structural components. Using everyday materials, such as paper, toothpicks and tape, they construct structures designed to (hopefully) support the weight of a cinder block for 30 seconds.

In this activity, students act as environmental engineers involved with the clean up of a toxic spill. Using bioremediation as the process, students select which bacteria they will use to eat up the pollutant spilled. Students learn how engineers use bioremediation to make organism degrade harmful chemicals. Engineers must make sure bacteria have everything they need to live and degrade contaminants for bioremediation to happen. Students learn about the needs of living things by setting up an experiment with yeast. The scientific method is reinforced as students must design the experiment themselves making sure they include a control and complete parts of a formal lab report.

Students apply their knowledge of constructing and programming LEGO MINDSTORMS (TM)NXT robots to create sumobots - strong robots capable of pushing other robots out of a ring. To meet the challenge, groups follow the steps of the engineering design process and consider robot structure, weight and gear ratios in their designs to make their robots push as hard as possible to force robot opponents out of the ring. A class competition serves as the final test to determine the best designed robot, illustrating the interrelationships between designing, building and programming. This activity gives students the opportunity to be creative as well as have fun applying and combining what they have learned through the previous activities and lessons in this and prior units in the series. A PowerPoint (tm) presentation, pre/post quizzes and a worksheet are provided.

Students are challenged to design, build and test small-scale launchers while they learn and follow the steps of the engineering design process. For the challenge, the "slingers" must be able to aim and launch Ping-Pong balls 20 feet into a goal using ordinary building materials such as tape, string, plastic spoons, film canisters, plastic cups, rubber bands and paper clips. Students first learn about defining the problem and why each step of the process is important. Teams develop solutions and determine which is the best based on design requirements. After making drawings, constructing and testing prototypes, they evaluate the results and make recommendations for potential second-generation prototypes.

Use this hands-on activity to demonstrate rotational inertia, rotational speed, angular momentum, and velocity. Students build at least two simple spinners to conduct experiments with different mass distributions and shapes, as they strive to design and build the spinner that spins the longest.

This lesson introduces students to the art of designing an airplane through paper airplane constructions. The goal is that students will learn important aircraft design considerations and how engineers must iterate their designs to achieve success. Students first follow several basic paper airplane models, after which they will then design their own paper airplane. They will also learn how engineers make models to test ideas and designs.

Students are introduced to the health risks caused by cooking and heating with inefficient cook stoves inside homes, a common practice in rural developing communities. Students simulate the cook stove scenario and use the engineering design process, including iterative trials, to increase warmth inside a building while reducing air quality problems. Students then collect and graph data, and analyze their findings.

Students build model caverns and bury them in a tray of sand. They test the models by dropping balls onto them to simulate an asteroid hitting the Earth. By molding papier-mache or clay around balloons (to form domes), or around small cardboard boxes (to form rectangular structures), students create unique models of their cavern designs.

The increasing scarcity of drinking water has captured the world’s attention and driven scientists and conservationists to find solutions. This ten-minute video and accompanying lesson has students examine how the country of Namibia has tapped an unlikely source of water to combat shortages and experiment with water filtration materials and strategies.

This lesson is not under an open license; however it is provided free for educational services.

With the challenge to program computers to mimic the human reaction after touching a hot object, students program LEGO® robots to "react" and move back quickly once their touch sensors bump into something. By relating human senses to electronic sensors used in robots, students see the similarities between the human brain and its engineering counterpart, the computer, and come to better understand the functioning of sensors in both applications. They apply an understanding of the human "stimulus-sensor-coordinator-effector-response" framework to logically understand human and robot actions.

Students learn about Pascal's law, an important concept behind the engineering of dam and lock systems, such as the one that Thirsty County wants Splash Engineering to design for the Birdseye River (an ongoing hypothetical engineering scenario). Students observe the behavior of water in plastic water bottles spilling through holes punctured at different heights, seeing the distance water spurts from the holes, learning how water at a given depth exerts equal pressure in all directions, and how water at increasing depths is under increasing pressure.

Student pairs first act out the instructions a robot is given with one person providing instructions and the other person following the instructions. This activity helps students understand how robots are programmed and with what type of precision commands must be given. Then students program LEGO MINDSTORMS(TM) NXT taskbots to navigate a simple maze. The goal is to teach students that robot computers simply follow directions exactly as they are given, thus one must be very clear and logical with programming instructions.

The airplanes unit begins with a lesson on how airplanes create lift, which involves a discussion of air pressure and how wings use Bernoulli's principle to change air pressure. Next, students explore the other three forces acting on airplanes thrust, weight and drag. Following these lessons, students learn how airplanes are controlled and use paper airplanes to demonstrate these principles. The final lessons addresses societal and technological impacts that airplanes have had on our world. Students learn about different kinds of airplanes and then design and build their own balsa wood airplanes based on what they have learned.

In this design challenge, students learn about the Vikings from an engineering point-of-view. While investigating the history and anatomy of Viking ships, they learn how engineering solutions are shaped by the surrounding environment and availability of resources. Students apply this knowledge to design, build and test their own model Viking ships.

Students use a thermal process approach to design, build and test a small-scale desalination plant that is capable of significantly removing the salt content from a saltwater solution. Students use a saltwater circuit to test the efficiency of their model desalination plant and learn how the water cycle is the basis for the thermal processes that drive their desalination plant.

Students discuss the characteristics of storms, including the relationship of weather fronts and storms. Using everyday materials, they develop models of basic lightning detection systems (similar to a Benjamin Franklin design) and analyze their models to determine their effectiveness as community storm warning systems.

In this unit, students learn the basics about weather and the atmosphere. They investigate materials engineering as it applies to weather and the choices available to us for clothing to counteract the effects of weather. Students have the opportunity to design and analyze combinations of materials for use in specific weather conditions. In the next lesson, students also are introduced to air masses and weather forecasting instrumentation and how engineers work to improve these instruments for atmospheric measurements on Earth and in space. Then, students learn the distinguishing features of the four main types of weather fronts that accompany high and low pressure air masses and how those fronts are depicted on a weather map. During this specific lesson, students learn different ways that engineers help with storm prediction, analysis and protection. In the final lesson, students consider how weather forecasting plays an important part in their daily lives by learning about the history of weather forecasting and how improvements in weather technology have saved lives by providing advance warning of natural disasters.

Permeability is the degree to which water or other liquids are able to flow through a material. Different substances such as soil, gravel, sand and asphalt have varying levels of permeability. In this activity, students explore different levels of permeability and compare the permeabilities of several different materials. They also are introduced to the basic concepts of building design, landscape architecture and environmental pollutant transport. As an extension, they discuss the importance of correct drainage and urban design issues in sensitive environments such as coastal areas.