I am interested in high school engineering projects. I’m looking for fun, engaging, and challenging projects for my honors students.
—T., Rhode Island

There is a vast amount of resources and ideas to help you out with engineering projects. Start with teaching the engineering design process – there are some excellent resources in The Learning Center.

Depending on your budget and access to tools and technology, you can offer a range of projects. Catapults or trebuchets are relatively easy to build and low-tech. These can range from hand-held, popsicle stick affairs all the way to larger ones you can test on the football field!

A friend of mine teaches his entire physics course through science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) projects. One student favourite is designing and building headphones. They can listen to music in his class only if they use the ones they construct in class from scratch!

If you want to incorporate computing and coding consider building robots with embedded microprocessors (like Arduino or Raspberry Pi) for specific tasks. A small autonomous robot to find and extinguish a candle is a real challenge. Another option is to build an autonomous greenhouse that monitors humidity, soil moisture and light levels and responds accordingly.

One of the best projects around, in my opinion, is to launch high-altitude balloons with science experiments, cameras, radio equipment. You can check out my collection of resources in The Learning Center on these types of projects: http://bit.ly/2W4Mtbv

These are just a few ideas. TryEngineering.org has an amazing array of resources and ideas.

Hope this helps!

Image by annca from Pixabay