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By the time young scientists reach high school, they know the basics of engineering. Now it’s time to apply those fundamentals to projects that model real-world problems, and to prepare high schoolers with the knowledge and experience they’ll need to create innovations that change the world as we know it. (Plus, engineering projects are a lot of fun!)

Find new class projects for a high school engineering class to challenge and inspire teens this school year. With low-prep resources and ideas for individual, group, and whole-class assignments, these projects reinforce important engineering concepts and prompt advanced students to create their own projects.

1. Build a radio from scratch

Teenagers may be more accustomed to online playlists than radio stations, but building a radio from scratch never goes out of style! Whether you use a class set of radio kits or let advanced students work with circuits and air gap capacitors, this engineering project for high schoolers is a fun way to work with electrical and mechanical engineering in one lesson.

2. Use the sun to power your invention

Solar power isn’t just a popular high school science fair idea (although it is that, as well). It’s a step into a future that isn’t reliant on nonrenewable resources, and for your students, it may be one of the most common ways to power cars and heat homes. Order a set of solar panels for your classroom and let high schoolers invent different ways to use them for everyday applications, whether it’s a solar-powered computer, vehicle, or entire home system.

3. Design your own cell phone

Do your high school engineers know how phones actually work? They will after they design their own cell phone! Use computer and electrical engineers to facilitate students’ designs of brand new cell phones. They may not be as advanced as the smartphones in their pockets, but this project will be just as valuable in the long run.

Design a Cell Phone Project | STEM, Entrepreneurship, PBL for GATE & Teamwork
By Teachers Resource Force
Grades: 5th-10th
Subject: Engineering

An innovative engineering project gets teens even more interested in their favorite possession: their cell phone! Students use a printable workbook and guided project pages to design, model, and pitch their original cell phone invention to their peers. 

4. Sail across a body of water

Crafting boats is an age-old practice in engineering! Using limited materials and a series of challenges, such as distance races and bearing weight, students create boats that withstand both the test of time and the tides of a small wading pool.

Aluminum Foil Boat STEM Engineering Challenge – HIGH SCHOOL Science
By Teach With Fergy
Grades: 9th-12th
Subject: Physical Science
Standards: NGSS HS-ETS1-1, 2, 3, 4; PS2-1, 2, 3, 4, 6; HS-PS3-2

Aligned to NGSS, this high school engineering project challenges young scientists to create a seaworthy boat with just two sheets of aluminum foil. They add an increasing amount of weight to test their boats and refine the designs as needed to keep them afloat.

5. Build a piezoelectric generator

Also known as an energy harvester, a piezoelectric generator project gives students a front-row seat to how pressure or vibration can create changes in electrical energy. Study how these generators are used in everyday electronic devices, including medical instruments and roadways, and encourage students to build their own energy harvesters that people could use in their daily lives.

6. Use bridges to make interdisciplinary connections

There’s no better way to make friends and learn science than building a bridge in engineering class! After studying bridge construction in different types of bridges, including truss, suspension, and arch bridges, students work together to create bridges that stretch across expansive areas and don’t fall apart under the stress of weight.

Balsa Wood Bridge Project STEM
By Physics Burns
Grades: 7th-12th
Subjects: Engineering, Physics
Standards: NGSS HS-ETS1-1, 1-3; PS2-1, PS2-2

Blend physics and engineering into a classic bridge-building activity that includes video instructions and a seven-day pacing guide. After writing a research paper and designing blueprints of their bridge, groups build a model of their bridge using balsa wood, wax paper, glue, and pins.

Bridge Engineering STEM Challenge – Women in STEM History Activity (Digital)
By Vivify STEM
Grades: 6th-12th
Subjects: Applied Math, Engineering, Physical Science
Standards: CCSS 6.G.A.1, 2, 3, 4; 7.G.B.4, 5, 6; 7.EE.B.3, 4; 6.RP.A.1, 2, 3; 7.RP.A.1, 2, 3

High schoolers learn more about innovative female engineers and the fundamentals of tension and compression with a hands-on bridge design process. With a lesson plan aligned to CCSS for math and editable digital student handouts, you’ll have everything you need to host this memorable engineering project in class.

7. Design a school rain garden

Include environmental engineering in your science curriculum when you assign a rain garden. Have small groups take on different elements of the garden, including irrigation and drainage systems, ideal plants, and rock placement, and find a small part of the campus to implement these ideas. As a bonus, you’ll beautify part of your school site for free!

8. Make a disaster-proof building

It’s one thing to create a building, but quite another to keep it from being destroyed. Assign an individual or group project where students construct a building that’s safe against a specific natural disaster, such as earthquakes, wildfires, tornadoes, or hurricanes. Give extra credit to students who consider more than one disaster in their design and modeling process!

9. Build a self-propelled race car

If your high schoolers think driving school is fun, just wait until they design their own cars in engineering class. Using balloons, carbonated water, rubber bands, or any other self-propelling mechanism, students work alone or in groups to create the fastest car they can. Hold a race at the end of the project and hand out engineering medals!

Mouse Trap Race Car STEM Challenge (Potential & Kinetic Energy, Simple Machines)
By Midwest Science
Grades: 6th-10th
Subjects: Engineering, General Science, Physics

Using mouse traps and other items found around the house, students follow a step-by-step instruction guide to create the car of their dreams. A newer lab version of this lesson allows students to lead and document their design process more thoroughly.

10. Make a water filtration system

Bring in a filtration engineering project for high schoolers to learn more about community water needs and drought mitigation. Using carbon filters, activated charcoal, and bottles of water, students develop the best way to ensure their water stays as clean and drinkable as possible. 

11. Hover a rubber band helicopter over the class

If you tell your high schoolers that they’re making helicopters in class today, you’ll have everyone’s attention. Apply the concepts of force and motion to an innovative helicopter project made with rubber bands, paper clips, wooden sticks, and any other materials students can think of to create helicopters with rotating propellers that successfully hover over the classroom.

12. Use simple machines to solve complex problems

Get back to basics with levers, pulleys, inclined planes, and wedges in your engineering process. Prompt your engineering students to use these simple machines in real-world applications for the most creative results possible. Will they build a food distribution system based on a pulley system or a series of wedges that deliver heavy loads across long distances? The limit is their imagination!

13. Float objects with an ultrasonic levitator

Can you cause objects to levitate just using sound? Have high schoolers experiment with this question using an activity that creates an ultrasonic or acoustic levitator. After learning about sound waves and frequencies, students work alone or together to create ultrasonic levitators that produce standing waves when facing one another.

Quick class projects for high school engineering classes 

Some engineering projects are favorites for a reason! If you’re looking for projects that students can complete in one or two class periods, check out these ideas that pack a lot of learning into a short amount of time.

• Rube Goldberg machine: Use classroom materials to send a marble down a series of simple machines and paths.
• Egg drop: Design a protective outer covering that keeps an egg intact when dropped from a distance.
• House of cards: All you need is a deck of cards per small group to show students the importance of structural integrity and building design.
• Wind turbine: Which group can create a wind turbine that generates the most electricity?
• Three little pigs: Three groups use the materials from the famous folk tale (straw, sticks, bricks) to see which house really can be the strongest.

Find new ways to solve old problems with TPT

When it comes to class projects for high school engineering classes, your lessons should be as creative as their final products. Use these ideas and more high school engineering resources to inspire young scientists to solve problems using new solutions. For differentiation opportunities or ways to use even more engineering ideas in class, check out class projects for middle school engineering classes, too!