One of the most common questions I get asked by engineering students is “What is engineering?” A close second is “How does engineering relate to my life?”

The most fundamental definition of an engineer is someone who creates solutions to the problems faced by humanity.

A group of students in my freshmen class created a project that beautifully demonstrates this concept in a relevant way to nearly every college student.  They applied the engineering design process to one of the great problems of on-campus life:

Problem

How can a student protect the candy stash in his/her dorm room?

Resources Available

• Laptop computer
• $70 budget
• NI myDAQ data acquisition instrument

Solution

The Gotcha Grab’n: a fully functional security system for their dorm room.  Their system detects movement inside a drawer full of goodies and responds to an unwanted invasion by sounding an alarm and recording an image of the perpetrator.

Have a look:

What everyday problems would you like to solve?