Lesson 7 of 10 · Engineering and Design

Experiment⭐ 30 XP🛠️ Engineer Shop

The Design Process

🧪Lab Brief #7

Engineering and Design.

🎯 Your mission

Set it up. Test it. Be amazed.

⚡ The twist

Constraints make you more creative, not less.

🤯

Mind = Blown

🛠️ The first computer bug was a literal moth stuck inside a machine in 1947.

🔮

Make a hypothesis first

Before you test: how many tries until it works?

What You'll Learn

The engineering design process: identify the problem, brainstorm ideas, build, test, and improve!

Key Words

Tap a word to see its definition.

Materials Needed

aluminum foil
pennies

Safety First

Have an adult check your set-up before you start, and tidy everything away afterwards.

Steps

Step 1 — Read

Look at the new words. Can you say each one?

Step 2 — Do

Design a boat from foil that can hold the most pennies without sinking.

Step 3 — Observe

Watch carefully. What happens?

Step 4 — Record

Draw and write about what you learned.

Check Your Understanding

Question 1

1 of 1

What is the first step when solving a problem?

How sure are you going to be?😐 maybe

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Where you see this in real life

Every bridge, building, and gadget you've ever used started with this.

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Stretch Challenge

Try this in real life this week.

Find something that's broken at home and try to figure out *why* it broke.

👨‍👩‍👧

For the dinner table

“What's something around the house you'd redesign — and how?”

🎯

Next Smart Experiment

We'll pick an experiment that matches exactly how you're thinking right now.

🧬Share card

Share this experiment

Send it to a parent who's looking for a 10-minute kitchen science win.

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Ready?