Design & Pitch Challenges in STEM asks students to examine significant problems in real-world circumstances and consider how they can create solutions.
Design & Pitch Challenges in STEM, Round 1
Solve real-world problems using your ingenuity to come up with a big idea!
Students will meet inventors and entrepreneurs who share their insights into the process of creation, from concept to prototype, pitch, production, and distribution. They will encounter a selection of Challenges that can be approached from many angles, using different areas of knowledge, techniques, and technology. Finally, it is their task to come up with an innovative solution to a Challenge and create a short, engaging pitch to convince a panel of investors that it’s worth funding.
It is critical that students learn to recognize when to reach out and teach themselves something new about STEM, their clients, or the situation. The world needs their big ideas!
Challenge: Operation Lifeline
During natural disasters, delivering essential supplies like water, food, and medicine becomes a race against time. This challenge becomes even harder when the supplies have to be kept cold the whole time so that they don’t spoil. In this Design & Pitch Challenge, students will be guided by Challenge Champion Kris Ludwig to find a workable solution for this important problem.
Target Audience:
Grades 6-12, adaptable for lower grade levels
Key Concepts:
Emergency response, essential supplies, natural disaster, medicine
Challenge: Power Me Up
Gas-powered vehicles release harmful greenhouse gases and rely on a natural resource that will someday be gone. As a result, more and more people are buying electric vehicles. This rise in electric vehicle ownership means there is a need for more electric vehicle charging stations. In this Design & Pitch Challenge, students will design a company that builds charging stations for electric vehicles.
Target Audience:
Grades 6-12, adaptable for lower grades
Key Concepts:
Electric vehicles, charging station, renewable energy, greenhouse gas emissions
Challenge: Keep It Real
Smartphones are everywhere & increase the ease of everyday life. From calling a ride, to ordering a pizza, we can connect with people across the world with a single tap of the screen. But what happens when smartphones get in the way of communication? In this Design & Pitch Challenge, students will design a way to help people monitor their phone usage and better connect face-to-face.
Target Audience:
Grades 6-12, adaptable for lower grades
Key Concepts:
Phubbing, smartphone addiction, mental health, app development
Challenge: Building Algorithms
In today’s internet world, data on people’s opinions are highly sought after, and a common way to understand those opinions is through surveys. Researchers create formulas, or algorithms, that analyze survey responses in an automated process, and then sell the results to high bidders. Because of high demand, many successful businesses are built around algorithms. The student’s challenge is to build an algorithm that uses people’s opinions to rate or rank something they care about as the start of their successful business.
Target Audience:
Grades 6-12, adaptable for lower grades
Key Concepts:
Algorithms, weighted categories, user input, automated
Challenge: Prototype to Profit
Being an entrepreneur is about finding problems and turning them into opportunities. It’s about inventing new solutions that create value for customers and using those solutions to make money, because even the best ideas need funding to succeed. At the heart of making money is finding the right business model type. The right business model type can be the difference between success and failure for an idea. And, sometimes, the business model type itself is the solution.
Target Audience:
Grades 6-12, adaptable for lower grades
Key Concepts:
Algebra, linear functions, linear equations, data analysis, business planning
Challenge: Erase Food Waste
Target Audience:
Grades 6-12, adaptable for lower grades
Key Concepts:
Key percent relationships, manipulating algebraic expressions, market research analysis, surveying
Challenge: Fix It: Design for Community Impact
In every community, there are problems that need solving or things that need improving. The most effective solutions are ones that meet the needs and desires of the community. If you pay attention and ask questions, you will notice what people want and what they’re lacking. Entrepreneurs don’t wait on the sidelines for others to do the work. They jump in and use their energy and passion to make change happen. What can you fix in your community?
Target Audience:
Grades 6-12, adaptable for lower grades
Key Concepts:
Computation, proportional reasoning, transformations, scale, surface area, data collection and analysis
Challenge: Fix It: Flashy Fashion
Target Audience:
Grades 6-12, adaptable for lower grades
Key Concepts:
Graphing skills, geometry coordination, geometric transformations, data collection
Challenge: Pollution Solution
Target Audience:
Grades 6-12, adaptable for lower grades
Key Concepts:
Surface area, volume, algebraic formulas
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This free material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1759167. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
These free materials were authored by Dr. Jere Confrey, Dr. Erin Krupa, Michael Belcher, and the research team in the Department of STEM Education at North Carolina State University and JASON Learning. Contact us at design_pitch@ncsu.edu
