Exploring Sea, Space, & Earth: Fundamentals of Engineering Design
MIT's project-based introduction to engineering design has student teams tackle space, earth, and ocean exploration problems with weekly milestones. Teams work through specialized learning modules covering machine elements, electronics, the design process, and technical visualization and communication, while also practicing written and oral presentation and team building. Sample projects include surveying a lake for invasive milfoil using a remote controlled aircraft and then deploying robotic harvesters to clear it, and planning a robotic mission to search for evidence of life on a moon of Jupiter, with scientists operating the robots via teleoperation and supervisory control. The course materials, available through MIT OpenCourseWare, include the project assignments, module content, and design milestones that structure the semester. It gives a hands-on grounding in engineering thinking rather than abstract theory, built around real design problems drawn from exploration science and robotics.