For the final course project, the student teams selected from four project types: (i) thermal insulator design, (ii) Lego® Mindstorms® competition, (iii) renewable energy and (iv) MSU Resource Center for Persons with Disabilities (RCPD) design. For the first choice, the student teams were to design, build and test a thermal insulator that would minimize the temperature increase of a given volume of water exposed to a heat source. The second choice required the students
to build and program an autonomous robot that competes simultaneously against other robots to gather high-scoring, colored balls. For the third project type, teams of students used solar and wind energy to power robotic material handling vehicles. The final type had teams work with RCPD clients to design and build working prototypes to assist the clients in daily activities. Teams from each of the project types will display their prototypes at Design Day along with posters detailing their design concepts. Pre-college students will recognize the most outstanding projects with awards.