Course Overview for EYW: Community Applications of Engineering Design

Engineer Your World: Community Applications of Engineering Design (EYW: Applications) is an authentic, project-based engineering course in which students work in teams to identify and solve a problem in their community. This special-projects course allows students to apply the engineering skills and habits of mind they learned in EYW: Design – and in EYW: Computing, if your school offers it – and to integrate and apply math, science and communication skills to a meaningful, real-world project.

Students Drive the Process

Students experience the power of engineering design by working to solve a problem that they identify and are motivated to pursue in their community. In the process of engaging in authentic engineering practices, they will create a portfolio of their work, design a solution, and present their results to stakeholders.

The Engineering Design Process

The units of EYW: Applications align with the steps of the engineering design process that students learned and employed in EYW: Design. EYW: Applications is appropriate for all students who have completed EYW: Design. While this is a great course for students who are interested in pursuing engineering as a career, we believe that all students can benefit from applying the engineering design process at a larger scale and making a difference in their community. Student portfolios can be a great addition to a college application or professional portfolio.

Unit Descriptions for EYW: Community Applications of Engineering Design

The course begins by laying a foundation for work as an engineer. Students engage in a Quick Design Challenge, investigate engineering careers and engineering skills, begin resume and portfolio creation, and develop teamwork skills in anticipation of the work to come.

Unit 1: Identify

Students will identify problems they are interested in solving. They will research possible needs and problems, create prioritized lists, and informally present their ideas to the class. Instructors will guide each team in selecting a project that meets campus requirements and that will be challenging, yet attainable for the team.

Unit 2: Describe

Students will describe their selected problem through research, stakeholder interviews, rapid prototyping, and the creation of a variety of models to better understand the problem and to begin to chart a course for addressing it.

Unit 3: Generate

Because concept generation is more effective in larger groups, student teams will join forces to generate concepts for each team’s selected problem.

Unit 4: Select

Each team will evaluate and select concepts using prototyping and other tools and techniques they learned in EYW Design. Students will conclude the unit with a mid-project presentation to a panel of stakeholders for feedback.

Unit 5: Embody

Teams will embody, test, and refine concepts, completing a minimum of three rounds of prototyping as they move toward their final design solution.

Unit 6: Share

Teams will finalize and share their results. Specifically, students will prepare manufacturing instructions and user instructions for their design, present their results to a panel of professionals, reflect on their project and process, receive and reflect on evaluative feedback, and finalize their porfolio.

Thoughts from a current EYW: Applications teacher:

“Applications has been a great addition to the Engineer Your World classes our school offers. Our seniors love having full autonomy over what projects they choose and faculty and staff love seeing their creativity and passion come out in ways we haven’t seen in other classrooms. Through this course, they are learning a lot of pivotal things that will help them in their future including: time management, project budgeting, teamwork and written and verbal communication with engineers in the workforce. EYW has been an incredible support for us and has allowed our school to have the flexibility we need to offer this course to meet graduation requirements. We will absolutely continue to offer it up to our seniors as a way for them to showcase everything they have learned throughout their high school engineering track.” ~ Hannah Sorley, Hill Country Christian School, Austin, TX