2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Pre-college exposure to engineering often creates misconceptions, with competitions frequently used to engage students. While fun, these contests can give the wrong message—suggesting that students who don't win may not be suited for engineering. Additionally, these contests can lead to anxiety and disengagement for those who struggle with competition, overshadowing the fact that engineering is a collaborative process aimed at meeting specific requirements. In real-world engineering, redesigns and refinements are a common and often essential part of the engineering design process.

We developed a curriculum unit that introduces students to engineering, solving a real-world problem and creating a seemingly complex device that all students succeed in finishing. The unit is appropriate for a weeklong summer program or a month-long high school science and engineering course module. In this scaffolded module students design a device for additive manufacturing. Our approach ensures all students can succeed by focusing on designing to meet specific requirements, not to win a competition. The project is team-based and allows for built-in redesign opportunities, which reflects both the collaborative and the iterative process of real-world engineering.

Additive manufacturing has become a major method of creating new objects, and perhaps the most familiar additive manufacturing method to students is 3D printing. The types of 3D printers most students are familiar with are filament printers. These use motors to control movement along three axes and to extrude the filament at a precise rate as it melts. However, other methods of 3D printing exist, including stereolithography (SLA). If a data projector is used to project light in the X and Y dimensions, then the only movement required by a motor is in the Z dimension; leading to a much easier 3D printer for students to design and construct. This setup makes the challenge more accessible while still teaching students essential skills like Arduino programming, motor control, rotary-to-linear motion, and system design, as well as how to consider the trade-offs inherent in their many design decisions. Each team's final product is unique but works effectively, showcasing the collaborative, creative problem-solving inherent in engineering while promoting the exchange of ideas based on the differences of the designs.

The unit aligns with Next Generation Science Standards related to engineering (HS-ETS1-2, HS-ETS1-3) and concepts related to chemical reactions and energy transfer (HS-PS1-2, HS-PS4-3, HS-PS4-4). This unit has been used multiple years as a summer camp at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as well as in engineering and technology classes in Illinois. Evaluations of the unit have been extremely favorable, with over 80% of over 200 participants reporting a significant increase in engineering interest and 95% reporting at least some increase.