Select a challenge scenario and complete each phase of the engineering design process. Your work is saved as you type.
Course Concept Tracker
Check off each concept from this course that you applied in your capstone design.
The Capstone Challenge
A capstone project integrates everything you have learned. In this final lesson, you apply systems thinking, measurement, structural analysis, energy principles, computational thinking, and design process skills to solve a real-world engineering challenge from start to finish.
What Makes a Good Engineering Solution?
A good engineering solution is: functional (it solves the stated problem), reliable (it works consistently), safe (it does not cause harm), affordable (it fits within budget constraints), and sustainable (it minimizes negative environmental impact). Rarely does a single design excel in all five — engineers make trade-offs.
Connecting the Course Concepts
Every engineering project involves systems thinking (understanding components and feedback). It requires measurement (to test and validate). Structural designs need structural engineering principles. Energy-using systems need efficiency analysis. Complex solutions require computational thinking to decompose, recognize patterns, and design algorithms. And all of this is guided by the design process.
Engineering Communication
Engineers must communicate their designs clearly: through sketches, diagrams, data tables, written reports, and oral presentations. A solution that works but cannot be communicated cannot be built by others or approved by stakeholders. Engineering drawings and reports are as important as the designs themselves.
Real-World Engineering Challenges
Engineers work on challenges like providing clean water to 2 billion people without access to safe drinking water, designing shelter for 100 million displaced people worldwide, building infrastructure for rapidly growing cities, and creating energy systems that power civilization without destroying the climate. These are solvable problems — they just need engineers like you.
Course Review Quiz
1. Which of the following best describes a system?
A single component working alone
A set of interacting parts that form a unified whole
Any measurement above 10 units
An algorithm with more than 5 steps
2. A bridge beam deflects 8× more when span length is doubled because deflection is proportional to:
L (span)
L² (span squared)
L³ (span cubed)
L⁴ (span to the fourth)
3. An engineer applies all four pillars of computational thinking to a new project. Which pillar involves focusing only on the relevant details?
Decomposition
Pattern Recognition
Abstraction
Algorithm Design
4. A solar panel converts 200 J of sunlight into 40 J of electrical energy. What is its efficiency?