In this challenge, students are asked to consider the impact of people suffering from heart conditions, both to the individual and to wider society. They then generate ideas for using programmable systems to improve people’s health, and to monitor themselves. A video introduces the idea of a heart rate monitor, and...

In this project, students will develop an automatic ‘ball boy’ for tennis or cricket practice. They could also decide to make the robot for something entirely different - the scope is endless, and it’s up to them what you do! 

In this resource, students design a new glove for use in a sport of their choice. Students may find it helpful to talk with local people who partake in their chosen sport. The P.E. Department may be able to suggest suitable contacts.

A selection of tests, activities and factsheets are available for the...

This activity, from the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), introduces students to how we see communications developing to help others.

The resource is designed so that students will:

This resource, aimed at upper primary, links to the topics of forces and earth and space. Children design and make foam rockets. They then carry out investigations using the rockets, such as how the angle of launch affects the distance travelled.

The resource contains notes on running the activity,...

This activity, from the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), sets students the challenge of designing and building a water treatment system to produce a clean sample of water. They will need to think about what equipment they would need, what stages the...

In this resource designed by the IET, students design and make a pewter cast medal for the men's football World Cup. The resource introduces the concept of CAD design, pewter casting and how this can be used to create something for a major event. Metal casting is a manufacturing process that involves pouring molten...

This resource gives students a brief overview of the different options available when building a parachute for the CanSat Competition. Students will learn about the underlying physics of parachutes and their design and how to control the speed of their CanSat. 

Learning objectives:

• Understand...

In this activity students are asked to consider how they would improve five amusing experiments by evaluating aspects of the experimental design including control of variables, sample size, bias, control groups and quality of data. 

A case study from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) archives looking at how viruses and bacteria also take advantage of manmade infrastructure to travel and spread. People are not the only things to hop on and off buses and trains. The University College London Healthy Infrastructure...

This resource, from the University of Nottingham, describes a number of investigations which could be carried out in heathland habitats. Heathlands are excellent habitats to use for designing and carrying out experiments. Plants are often relatively easy to identify when compared with other habitats and...

This collection of three resources asks students to:

*design and model the physical elements of a robot arm and demonstrate how this could be achieved using a smart material. Students can then subsequently use this information to support the design of a robot arm.

*design and model a robot arm in 2D,...

Design and make a seed from a newly discovered plant using junk materials.This activity provides an opportunity for creative thinking around the topic of germination and seed dispersal. It also supports the development of literacy and presentation skills. Further ideas...

In this activity, pupils will use the theme of the London Marathon to respond to a design context, investigate the context on the internet and design a wheelchair for sports use. 

Pupils will consider the use of different search...

This activity sheet is based on the Inventive Podcast.  It introduces a structural engineer and author, Roma Agrawal, and links her work to forces. The activity sheet also supports Careers Benchmark 4: Careers in the curriculum by introducing a career and role model. There are also links to short audio clips of the...