What is a Design Challenge?

A Design Challenge empowers students to integrate prior knowledge, new discoveries, and the Engineering Design Process (EDP) to design, test, and improve a solution. Resources to learn about the EDP can be found here.

2024 Student Design Challenge

Our overarching topic is ENERGY. In 2015, the UN General Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which includes a dedicated and stand-alone goal on energy, SDG 7, calling to "ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all". Achieving SDG7 will open a new world of opportunities for millions of people through new economic opportunities and jobs, empowered women, children and youth, better education and health, more sustainable, equitable and inclusive communities, and greater protections from, and resilience to, climate change. 

This year’s challenge invites students to consider how they can improve their community and environment by examining energy use in their area. Students have choice about how they approach the topic so they may best approach the needs of their communities and lives.

Students might consider questions such as these: 

• How can energy use be reduced to help utilize resources more efficiently?
• What methods of energy consumption do you most frequently use? What data could be gathered, and how could that data be used to better understand energy usage?
• What product or service could help solve a large-scale energy problem? Such as people without light.

For each question, students are encouraged to:  

• Identify the problem with excess energy usage 
• Define the target audience who will benefit from the solution 
• Prototype your solution in the most appropriate media for your project
• Discuss how the solution solves the problem for the target audience 
• Identify one career that is related to implementing the solution 

Participating schools will conduct classroom-level presentations and then nominate outstanding projects to participate in a virtual competition in Spring 2024. For safety and equity of access, all competitions will be held virtually this year. The cost and time of travel can be a burden to some families and schools. To alleviate that burden and encourage more students to explore STEM challenges, we will hold all levels of competition virtually. No student should be excluded from this opportunity due to constraint of their location in the state.

By registering for the Design Challenge, you will receive an interactive digital booklet you can share with students. The booklet includes step by step instructions, resources, and videos to help roll out the challenge at your school.