In this activity students examine and learn about the various jobs and skills within manufacturing careers.

How do shape and weight impact the performance of a fidget spinner? This challenge will explore how shapes, weight and force impact the performance of a fidget spinner. Engineering a mechanical device involves designing with a result in mind. This challenge will ask students to explore math, science and engineering design through the device of a fidget spinner.

This is a 3-hour lesson that includes a self-paced interactive module and classroom activities. The teacher guide includes a challenge sequence (timeline), relevance to standards, materials list, assessment, evaluation rubric, and learning extensions.

Lesson objectives: (1) Investigate the basic shapes that make up a fidget spinner. (2) Explore how a fidget spinner works. (3) Design, build and test your own fidget spinner.

What types of 2D and 3D shapes make up the products all around you? This challenge will explore how different shapes can be put together to create a product. All the products that humans design and produce are a combination of different shapes. To design a product, engineers and designers must understand how combining, subtracting and adding shapes can make new and unique objects. This challenge will have students use a 3D design tool to create a new and unique shape.

This is a 60-minute lesson that includes a self-paced interactive module and classroom activities. The teacher guide includes a challenge sequence (timeline), relevance to standards, materials list, assessment, resources like cut-outs template, and learning extensions.

Lesson objectives: (1) Explore and interact with 3D shapes in a design plane. (2) Compose unique 3D shapes by decomposing other shapes. (3) Build a 3D shape from a 2D net.

How do simple machines and gears help devices work? In this challenge, learners will explore how gears are used in machines and mechanisms. Gears are closely related to simple machines and provide a mechanical advantage in machines. Devices worldwide contain gears and are components critical in mechanical engineering design.

This is a 3-hour lesson that includes a self-paced interactive module and classroom activities. The teacher guide includes a challenge sequence (timeline), relevance to standards, materials list, assessment, evaluation rubric, and learning extensions.

Lesson objectives: (1) Explore the connection between gears and simple machines. (2) Differentiate how different gears do work, transfer power, speed and direction. (3) Design, build and demonstrate a simple model of a gear train.

How can compression and tension be used to create sustainable and innovative structures of the future that require less material to build? This challenge will explore how forces can be harnessed to build strong structures instead of overcoming forces. When building structures, attention to endurance and sustainability are at the height of concern. Therefore, exploring methods for constructing buildings that maintain resistance to natural and external forces, such as high winds from hurricanes or vibrations from earthquakes, while simultaneously using reduced construction materials is necessary. In this challenge, students will examine tensegrity structures and, upon learning how they are constructed and work, design their own model tensegrity structures that would benefit a city or community.

This is a 2-hour lesson that includes a self-paced interactive module and classroom activities. The teacher guide includes a challenge sequence (timeline), relevance to standards, materials list, assessment, evaluation rubric, and learning extensions.

Lesson objectives: (1) Explore the forces present in tensegrity structures. (2) Review common challenges to building structures in modern and historical cities. (3) Evaluate how tensegrity structure principles can be used to create sustainable structures. (4) Design a sustainable structure and/or resistant to hurricanes or earthquakes.

This video segment adapted from A Science Odyssey looks at the invention of the automobile and the development of mass production.

This video from KET traces the energy transformations that occur when coal is burned to produce electricity. Some of the mechanical processes are also described.

How can we alter the design of chip packaging to be more sustainable while protecting the product? Students will design a better way to package potato chips that will be less harmful to the environment and protect the product from being crushed during shipping. The potato chip. It’s crispy. It’s salty. It’s delicious. And you can’t eat just one! As consumers, we often devour a bag of potato chips without giving a second thought to what happens to the bag when we throw it away. Did you know that the average potato chip bag is nearly impossible to recycle? That’s because most bags used for this purpose contain up to 7 layers of plastic! Currently, there is no way to separate those layers, so the bags end up in landfills.

This is a 60 to 90-minute lesson that includes a self-paced interactive module and classroom activities. The teacher guide includes a challenge sequence (timeline), relevance to standards, materials list, assessment, evaluation rubric, and learning extensions.

Lesson objectives: (1) Research and analyze green materials that can be used in product packaging. (2) Investigate 3-D shapes and how they might be used to protect products from damage. (3) Create a design for green packaging that will contain food products.

In this media-rich, self-paced lesson, students explore the industries that produce and rely on advanced technology and assess how their goals and interests may make them well suited for a career in this cutting-edge sector.

Published in 1986, this Kennedy School case tells the story of Harley-Davidson's application to the ITC for temporary relief from high levels of imported Japanese motorcycles. The case lays out, in considerable detail, Harley's justification for protection and the Japanese manufacturers' counterarguments. The case is presented in two parts, the first focusing on the extent of the "injury" an the second on the nature of the relief Harley requested.

In this activity, students learn about creating a design directly from a CAD (computer-aided design) program. They will design a tower in CAD and manufacture the parts with a laser cutter. A competition determines the tower design with the best strength:weight ratio. Students also investigate basic structural truss concepts and stress concentrations. Partnership with a local college or manufacturing center is necessary for the completion of this project.