Engineering Design & Development (EDD) is the capstone course in the PLTW high school engineering program. It is an open-ended engineering research course in which students work in teams to design and develop an original solution to a well-defined and justified open-ended problem by applying an engineering design process.
Students will perform research to select, define, and justify a problem. After carefully defining the design requirements and creating multiple solution approaches, teams of students select an approach, create, and test their solution prototype. Student teams will present and defend their original solution to an outside panel. While progressing through the engineering design process, students will work closely with experts and will continually hone their organizational, communication, and interpersonal skills; their creative and problem-solving abilities; and their understanding of the design process.
Engineering Design & Development is a high school–level course that is appropriate for 12th grade students. Since the projects on which students work can vary with student interest and the curriculum focuses on problem-solving, EDD is appropriate for students who are interested in any technical career path. EDD should be taken as the final capstone PLTW course since it requires application of the knowledge and skills introduced during the PLTW foundation courses.
The Engineering Design & Development course of study includes:
- engineering design processes
- project management
- documenting an engineering design process
- teamwork and professional skills
- problem identification and justification
- research
- intellectual property
- design requirements
- project proposals
- design
- virtual design and testing
- preliminary design reviews
- prototyping
- testing a prototype
- presenting the process and results