All Resources and Lesson Plans: Engineering Design

Advances in Neurotechnology
In this video segment from Greater Boston, learn how a man with severe motor disabilities can operate a computer and move a prosthetic hand by simply thinking the commands, thanks to the combined efforts of bioengineers and neuroscientists.

Airplanes: Designing for Stealth
Explore this NOVA interactive activity to see how engineers have modified a military plane's sound, shape, and heat emissions to minimize detection.

Anatomy of a Firework
There's more to a fireworks display than meets the eye. This interactive activity from the NOVA Web site looks at the technology behind each burst of light.

Ask an Engineer
Explore some of the wonders of modern engineering in this video from the Sciencenter in Ithaca, New York. Hear a diverse selection of engineers explain how things work.

Balloon Brain: Designing a Helmet
In this video segment adapted from ZOOM, cast members are challenged to design protective headgear for a water balloon using what they know about the properties of the materials available.

The Bridge Challenge
In this interactive activity from the Building Big Web site, use your knowledge of bridge design to match the right bridge to the right location in a fictitious city.

Building a Dam Like a Beaver
In this video segment from WGBH, children make a dam with dirt, sticks, and stones to try to stop the flow of water.

Building Simple Machines: Plant Quencher
In this video segment from ZOOM, Jillian explains how her simple machine uses marbles, levers, flowing sand, and a spinning wheel to water a plant.

Citigroup Skyscraper Design Problem
This video segment adapted from Building Big looks at the challenges faced by structural engineer William LeMessurier in designing a new skyscraper and how he very closely averted disaster.

Columns: Experimenting with Paper Cups
In this video segment from ZOOM, the cast experiments to see if a bunch of paper cups covered by a piece of cardboard can support the weight of a cast member.

Construct an Aqueduct
Think like an engineer and build an aqueduct in this interactive activity from the NOVA Web site.

Design and Build a Tangle-Free Headphone Holder
In this lesson, students follow the engineering design process to build a tool that stores headphones for a portable music listening device, such as an MP3 player, without the wires getting tangled. As they work through this process, students learn about the engineer's role in finding solutions to meet human needs.

Design: Building a House
This collection of images follows the process of building a house from cutting the trees and making the bricks to finishing construction.

Designing a Puff Mobile
The air you exhale can power a puff mobile. Watch as the ZOOM cast races their air-powered designs to see which design features are the most successful.

Designing Balloon Cars
Can the air in a balloon power a car? Watch students from Weston, Massachusetts, demonstrate their balloon car designs in this video adapted from ZOOM.

Designing Future Cities: Alternative Energy
In this video segment adapted from ZOOM, visit a class as they design a city of the future that will use solar, wind, and water power to fuel its economy.

Design Inspired by Nature
In this stills collage produced for Teachers' Domain, see several examples of everyday inventions that were either inspired by nature or are similar in form and function to plants or animals.

Drilling to Antarctica’s Rock Core
In this video adapted from ANDRILL, find out how geoscientists get through more than a dozen football fields of ice and water in order to study the rock and sediment beneath Antarctica.

Easy-Fit Design
In this video produced for Teachers' Domain, Chi-An Wang, a mechanical engineering graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, describes her process when working with New Balance to design a new triathlon shoe.

Elements of Steel
This resource from the AMERICAN EXPERIENCE Web site, which contains both an interactive activity and illustrated text, looks at the composition of different types of steel and their impact on technology.

Engineering for the Red Planet
In this video segment from NASA, robotics researcher Ayanna Howard uses engineering to improve the intelligence of robots in space exploration.

Exploring Windmill Design
In this video segment adapted from ZOOM, cast members are challenged to design a windmill that can be powered by a hair dryer.

Fireworks! Lifting Charge
In this video segment adapted from NOVA, learn how pyrotechnicians use common compounds to blast fireworks into the sky and give them shape.

Forces Lab
In this interactive activity from the Building Big Web site, select one of the actions of squeezing, stretching, bending, sliding, or twisting to explore the forces of compression, tension, shear, and torsion.

Funny Boat
In this video segment adapted from FETCH!™, contestants are challenged to use materials from a garbage dump to build a boat that floats, can be steered, and is propelled by something other than oars.

Fusion: The Hydrogen Bomb
Just after World War II, nuclear scientists turned their attention from fission to fusion. This video segment adapted from AMERICAN EXPERIENCE looks at the beginnings of thermonuclear power generation.

Galileo: Timeline of His Life
This illustrated timeline from the NOVA Web site turns back the clock to the late 1500's to relive the dramatic life of one of the world's most renowned scientists.

Getting Airborne and Wing Design
What makes an airplane fly? Discover the connection between Newton's third law of motion and flight in this interactive activity from the NOVA Web site.

Global Warming: Beyond Fossil Fuels
Martin Hoffert, professor of physics at New York University, discusses global warming and alternative energies in this interview from the NOVA/FRONTLINE Web site.

Global Warming: The Developing World
This video segment adapted from NOVA/FRONTLINE looks at the future of global warming as developing nations, including India and China, increase their need for energy.

Grass Bridge
In this video segment adapted from NOVA, watch residents of the Peruvian Andes build a suspension bridge made entirely of grass.

Hoover Dam
This video segment from Building Big: "Dams," demonstrates the basic principals at work in the Hoover Dam, a concrete gravity dam that also makes use of the properties of the arch.

A House for Teddy Bear
In this video segment from WGBH, children experiment with cardboard and build a house for their stuffed animals.

How Do You Keep Lemonade Cool?
This video segment adapted from FETCH!™ shows contestants experimenting with different materials to see which is the best insulator and thus best able to keep the lemonade at their stand cool for customers.

How Technology Affects Your Life
This collection of still images explores the many ways in which various technologies, from telephones to bicycles to computers, affect the everyday lives of young children.

How Would You Turn a Bolt in Space?
In this fast-paced NASA Brain Bites™ video, an astronaut demonstrates the impact of microgravity on the use of tools in space.

Igloo 101
Learn what it takes to build an igloo—from the best kind of snow to the most effective tools—and other little-known facts about these traditional Canadian Inuit structures in this interactive activity from NOVA.

The Impact of Technology: Nylon
This video segment adapted from A Science Odyssey looks at the invention of nylon.

Investigating a Suspension Bridge
In this video segment adapted from ZOOM, the cast builds a suspension bridge from a couple of chairs, some cardboard, and rope.

Kid Designer: A Comfortable Cardboard Chair
Follow along in this video segment from ZOOM as 13-year-old Nick explains how he came up with a design, tested materials, and constructed his own cardboard chair.

Kid Inventor: Newspaper Crank
In this video segment from ZOOM, Andrew demonstrates how his invention helps him get ready for his paper route.

Kid Inventor: The Couch Protector
Want to keep your dog off the couch? In this video segment from ZOOM, Jason demonstrates his invention that does just that: a couch protector.

The Leaning Tower: Where It Stands Today
Will the Leaning Tower of Pisa give way to gravity? In this interview from the NOVA Web site, engineer John Burland relates the difficult job of saving the tower.

Levers: Raising the Moai on Easter Island
In this video segment adapted from NOVA, a team of archaeologists and engineers explores different uses of the lever by recreating the engineering feats of the ancient Easter Island peoples.

Lightning Hunters
Find out how scientists and engineers use rockets to attract lightning in this video segment adapted from NOVA.

Mars Dead or Alive: A Hostile Environment
This NOVA video segment describes the challenges presented by the frozen desert environment of Mars to NASA engineers designing two robots that will journey millions of miles to the red planet.

Mars Dead or Alive: Where to Land?
In this video segment from NOVA, engineers and scientists designing the Spirit and Opportunity rovers struggle to choose landing spots both safe enough for landing and geologically promising.

Motorcycles for Health
In this video segment adapted from Rx for Survival, health care workers in The Gambia learn to use and maintain motorcycles in order to travel to isolated villages with a uniquely designed ambulance attachment that can mean the difference between life and death.

Nuclear Blast Damage
This illustrated document from the AMERICAN EXPERIENCE Web site examines the "zones of destruction" caused by nuclear weapons.

Nuclear Reaction: Meltdown
What happens when a nuclear reactor overheats? This video segment adapted from FRONTLINE looks at the nuclear reactor meltdown at Chernobyl, the worst accident of its kind.

Nuclear Reaction: Three Mile Island
This video segment adapted from AMERICAN EXPERIENCE examines the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history.

Off the Grid
This interactive activity produced for Teachers' Domain presents users with three hypothetical scenarios in which they are challenged to design a wind power system that will meet their electrical needs.

Pilotless Flight: Timeline of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Explore this NOVA interactive timeline and discover the many technological innovations in the history of unmanned flight, from hot-air balloons to miniature flying robots.