4-H Engineering Design Project

Get started with 4-H'ers in your area

• Find a club near you or contact your local 4-H office for more info.

Get started on your own

• Wind energy experiment from National 4-H (free)
• Rubber band cars experiment from National 4-H (free)
• Iowa 4-H Science, Engineering & Technology Hot Sheet (free download)
• 3-D modeling derby, Engineering an Empire and other activity books from Utah 4-H (free download)
• Try Engineering (free online games)

How and why do things move the way they do? (video)

• PBS Design Squad
• Curiosity Machine design challenges
• Engineering science fair projects from education.com
• Engineering is Everywhere hands-on activities
• Power of the Wind activities and kit (for sale)

• Engineering Go For It activities, careers, scholarships and more

Engineering design covers a broad range of topics and objects.  Judges will look at how well you have applied the engineering design process.

Some ideas

You could design, build and test a:

•  Hand that can grab items
•  Water filtration device
•  Musical instrument
•  Model of a roller coaster
•  Model of a bridge
•  Bottle rocket launcher
•  Catapult
•  Goat milking stand
•  Model of a wind turbine
•  Rubber band car
•  Solar oven
•  Rube Goldberg-type Machine
•  Wave-powered device to recharge boat batteries

• What a judge is looking for (project evaluation sheet)
• County fair judging - what's that like? (video)

Record keeping

Some counties require record keeping for fairs.