Everyday Engineering

Daylight in a Bottle -bringing sunlight into a building provides free, renewable light. Find out how an ordinary water bottle can bring light into slums around the world.

• Daylight in a Bottle: At home version (PDF) & original version (PDF)
• Philippines: Plastic Bottles Go Solar. See what life in a slum in the Philippines looks like, and the difference that daylighting can make in a building.
• Dream Big - Lean and Green: Engineering Alternative Energy. Learn how engineers are always looking for ways to use renewable energy sources such as the sun and wind.

Build a Better Bubble Blower -Use the Engineering Design Process to test and build the "best" bubble blower.

• Build a Better Bubble Blower-At home version (PDF)
• Build a Better Bubble Blower-Original version (PDF)

Water Pollution Clean Up --Healthy water is important for humans as well as for the environment. Can you design a water filter to remove pollutants?

• Water Pollution Clean Up: At home version (PDF) & Original version (PDF), with more questions and adaptations for younger and older grades.
• Dream Big - Quenching A Thirsty World: Water Engineering . Learn how engineers are finding innovative ways to provide clean water.
• Dream Big - Water Wishes: Engineering for Those in Need . Many communities around the world lack clean water. See how humanitarian engineering involving college students brings clean water to a village in Peru.
• Learn about historic civil engineering icons in the area of water treatment:
  • The Lawrence Experimental Station . Completed in 1886, this was a pioneer engineering laboratory dedicated to research on the treatment of water supply, sewage and industrial waste and has been recognized nationally and internationally for contributions to the environmental engineering field.
  • The Metropolitan Milwaukee Sewage Treatment Plant . Completed in 1925. Before 1925, sewage from Milwaukee and its suburbs was released directly into local rivers which flowed through the city of Milwaukee. The Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewage Treatment Plant is America's earliest large-scale activated sludge type municipal sewage treatment plant - a major improvement on contemporary methods.
• Meet some historic engineers who worked in water treatment:
  • Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards  (1842-1911) Ellen Richards was the first woman to graduate from MIT, a pioneer in the fields of sanitary engineering and public health, and the founder of euthenics (the study of human functioning and well being by improvement of living conditions) and home economics.
  • Abel Wolman  (1892-1989) Abel Wolman combined engineering with public health and hygiene into the field that came to be known as sanitary engineering. He developed globally implemented procedures for water and sewage chlorination and disinfection, and influenced federal policy concerning water pollution control and management.

Colorful Chemistry -Red cabbage juice makes a colorful chemical indicator for acids and bases around the home.

• Colorful Chemistry (PDF)

Build an Earthquake Resistant Structure -build structures out of toothpicks and marshmallows then test them on a home-made shake table.

• Build an Earthquake Resistant Structure: At home version (PDF) & Build an Earthquake Resistant Structure-original version (PDF) with more questions and adaptations for younger and older grades.
• Dream Big: Engineering Our World (42-minute documentary available on Netflix and Vimeo)-One of the stories in the film shows how living through an earthquake changed the life of Manzer Pehlivan, inspiring her to become an engineer.
  • Menzer Pehlivan (6 minute biographical video) As a geotechnical engineer Menzer explores how the stability of soil keeps buildings standing in an earthquake. See her in Nepal after an earthquake.
  • Dream Big - Meet the Women Engineers Menzer Pehlivan, Avery Bang, Anjelica Hernandez share their experiences as female engineers.

Foil Boats -this is a fun activity for all ages. How much weight will a piece of foil support? Turn it into a challenge!

• Foil Boats: At home version (PDF) & Original version (PDF), with more questions and adaptations for younger and older grades

Windy City Tower/Paper Towers -Can you design and build a paper tower that can hold up in the wind?

• Windy City Tower: At home version (PDF) & Original version (PDF) , with more questions and adaptations for younger and older grades.
• Dream Big - Holding Sway: Wind Engineering (YouTube)  See how engineers used wind testing to build the Shanghai Tower, one of the tallest buildings in the world, with curved edges. (Middle & High School)
• Alexandre Gustave Eiffel --while the Eiffel Tower might be his most famous accomplishment it turns out that Eiffel made a number of other accomplishments including constructing some of the first wind tunnels. (High School)
• The Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel Laboratory (PDF) --recognized by ASCE as an Historic Landmark in 2018. The first wind tunnel built explicitly to test the effects on wind on the build environment. (High School)