2015 Design Challenges

A document containing a brief description of the TEK8 program and the instructor guides and the student guides for all of the 2015 design challenges is available here.

2015 Design Challenges Available

Title Description Engineering area
Boat/Power System Challenge
Photo of a wooden row boatPhoto of high voltage power lines		 Build a boat is a power system and make it as robust as possible to survive the storm with no problem! Electrical Engineering
Bone Fracture Fixation Photo pf lower leg and foot in a plaster cast. Build a device that can hold a featured bone in place with supporting weight. Biomedical Engineering
Cell Clusters Photo of a cancer cell

Make a cell cluster that can be transported without breaking.

 Biomedical Engineering
Dislocation Motion Photo of a bridge collapsed into a river. Guide the movement of a dislocation (crack) through a material . Materials Science and Engineering
Distributed Generation Drawing of an electrical grid. Design an electrical  distribution system and determine where the homes and Distributive Generation sites will go. Electrical Engineering
DNA Origami Container and bits of sponge Build a structure that can attach itself to one cell. Biomedical Engineering

Hydraulic Fracturing (“Fracking”)

Photo of fracking test apparatus.

Get the fracking fluid (pellets) to the end of the fracking well. From increasing heights.

 Chemical Engineering
Iron and Ferritin Photo of iron and ferritin test apparatus. Collect iron particles (marbles) from one end of the blood stream to the other. Do not collect/knock out any other particles (marbles). Biomedical Engineering
Marble Car Roller Coaster

Graph of vehicle speed and time with a background of a car attached to testing equipment

In a drive cycle test, the speed of the car must match the pattern. To simulate this, the marble is the car and the track is the test pattern. The marble must reach the end of the track without falling out.

 Mechanical Engineering
Micelles Drawing of hydrophobic micelle.

 
Build a new micelle only using 5 materials to connect the 5 whiffle balls and it must maintain its cohesive structure when dropped from 3 feet.
 Biomedical Engineering
Paper Failure

A blue car being test crashed

 Control the failure of the paper material and support the minimum weight without breaking. Materials Science and Engineering
Polymer Structures

black tire

 Build a structure to hold the nanoparticle when dropped above structure. The nanoparticle must not drop through structure or bounce off. Chemical Engineering
Sliding Cells

A green slide of cells and beads

Design a device to mix flows of red and blue water together to create purple water.

 Biomedical Engineering