High school students often have questions about how their high school classes will help them with college. Project Discovery participants are exposed to an actual engineering curriculum, so they can ask about courses that will best prepare them for engineering study. Project Discovery participants are allowed use of several labs in Learned Hall for eight hands-on lab sessions. Working with a faculty member, students put to use fundamental concepts in mathematics, chemistry, and physics to solve open-ended engineering design problems. The professor answers questions and helps students develop problem-solving skills.
Participants learn the importance of ethics in the engineering field.
They learn how engineers improve their work by studying why past failures happened. Participants perform team-building exercises to develop skills necessary to work closely with other engineers. Students visit local engineering facilities to see that engineering isn't only lab experiments. They'll see engineers at work in a field that may be a career possibility.