2014 Design Challenges

A document containing a brief description of the TEK8 program and the instructor guides and the student guides for all of the 2014 design challenges is available here.

2014 Design Challenges Available

Title Description Engineering area
Aerodynamics US Navy Plane dropping bundles of aid

Reduce the drag on a cargo container by modifying its shape and design your modifications in order to produce lift.

 Aeronautical Engineering
Candy Catching Enzymes

A pile of colorful circular candy and a snickers bar

Design a two-pocket enzyme that can fit in the cell and catch both of the substrates (M&Ms and caramels).

 Chemical Engineering
Contaminated Groundwater Filtration Photo of a stream

 
Design a series of filters to catch different size particles at different levels.
 Environmental Engineering
Critical Crayons – Recycling

A red crayon with a white string dangling from it. The crayon is in between the space of two tables
Develop new processes to recycle “critical crayons” and other components of a mixture of waste.
 Materials Science and Engineering
DNA Origami

A blue slinky with a white cardboard on its top and middle

Create a structure that is strong enough to hold a molecule that will attach to another molecule.

 Biomedical Engineering
Double Stranded DNA

A blue box with three silver buttons on the side

 Build a strand of base pairs (magnets) that will match up with an existing strand. Biomedical Engineering
Engineering Micelles

A person standing next to two vertical black lines on a wall, one 3 feet, the other higher
Using a paper cup in the design, engineer a micelle that holds as many marbles as possible with the materials provided.
 Biomedical Engineering
Extracelluar Matrix

Strength testing of an orange material pushed over two white sheets with thin wires holding them up
Design a structure that is strong enough to provide shape and support to the body tissue, in this case approximately 5 pounds.
 Biomedical Engineering
Football Knee Braces

A wooden stand holding up a white tube with the words "femur" on it
Design a knee brace that allows full range of motion front-to-back and prevents leg bones moving side-to-side separately.
 Biomedical Engineering
Graphene

4 pieces of orange tape forming a square with a blue sticky note in the middle
Get just the top sticky note from the whole stack without any body part crossing the boundary.
 Electrical Engineering
Magnetic White Blood Cell

A ping pong ball next to an ice tray

Mimic antibodies that make the white blood cells magnetic.

Create a way to attach the magnets to the Styrofoam ball. Collect magnets from ice cube trays
 Biomedical Engineering
Moving Cells

A maze testing station made of cardboard

Build a device that uses a magnet to move a cell and then use the device to move the cell through all three levels of the maze (White, Black, and Silver) and to the two targets in the back.

 Biomedical Engineering
Velocity Detector

A blue barrel shaped collider detecting atoms moving around it

Design a detector that directs low-speed incoming particles to a certain cup and high-speed incoming particles to a different cup.

 Engineering Physics