Engineering Alaska - An Introduction to Engineering 

ES F100L is where engineering stops being abstract. Students spend a semester building something real and most of what they learn comes from the moments when it doesn't work.

Self-directed learning: The course introduces Node-Red, Fusion 360, 3D printing, laser cutting, soldering, and electronics assembly, but not deeply. There isn't time, and that's intentional. Most students end up pivoting to a different programming environment or fabrication approach based on what their project actually requires. That pivot is the lesson. Engineers spend their entire careers picking up unfamiliar tools. This course is about learning that you can.

Design process: Students brainstorm ideas, pitch a concept to the class, write a funding proposal, build a prototype, and present their results. That sequence from a rough idea to a defended design mirrors what engineering projects actually look like. The proposal is submitted to the UAF Makerspace, which administers a grant funded by UAF's Center for Innovation. Every team receives up to $300 for materials 

Micro-failure: First-year students in this course don't yet have the theoretical framework to predict whether something will work before they build it. That's fine, they don't need it. What they need is the habit of building, observing what breaks, forming a hypothesis about why it broke, and trying again. This is the most direct expression of micro-failure in any course I teach: students iterate toward a working prototype without the safety net of a solved example in the textbook.

Engineering Communication: The design proposal is written to secure funding, request a budget, justify material choices, and commit to a timeline. Progress updates keep the team accountable throughout the build. The final presentation and design report ask students to honestly evaluate what worked, what didn't, and what they'd do differently. That last part, the lessons learned, is often the most valuable writing students do all semester.

Excitement: This is a companion course to ES F100X, which asks whether engineering is the right path. ES F100L answers a different question: what does it actually feel like to make something from nothing? Students who finish this course having built a working prototype, however imperfect, have a concrete, physical answer to that question. That experience matters more than any specific skill they picked up along the way.

ES F100L was designed from the ground up by myself and Tate Barhaug, the UAF Makerspace Manager. That collaboration is more than a co-authorship credit; the course and the physical space were designed together, which means students learn in an environment built specifically for this kind of iterative, project-based work. We developed the Node-Red programming tutorials, building on a curriculum from T3 Alaska, an alliance of students, educators, and community partners dedicated to creating pathways for innovative student leadership across Alaska.

In the lab, I lead sessions while Tate co-instructs, contributing expertise throughout. Students benefit from having the person who manages the Makerspace day-to-day as part of their teaching team. That means questions about fabrication, tool capabilities, and material constraints get answered by someone who works in that space every hour of every week.

The course runs in four sections per semester, with 10–17 students per section, forming 3–5 teams of 3–4 students. That scale is deliberate small enough that every team gets meaningful attention during build sessions, and intimate enough that students see multiple different projects and approaches playing out in the same room at the same time.

• Course Design: Full curriculum co-developed with Tate Barhaug, including project structure, assessment design, and the semester arc from pitch to final presentation.

• Node-Red Tutorials: Built on top of the T3 Alaska curriculum, adapted for the Makerspace context and the tool set available to first-year students.

• Grant administration: Tate and the Makerspace manage the Center for Innovation funding that supports student project budgets each semester.

• Community framing: Projects are personal but designed to have community implications students identify a real problem and build toward a solution that matters beyond the course.

The Design Project: 

The entire second half of the semester is organized around a single team design project. Students identify a problem with personal relevance and community implications, then work through the full engineering design process from pitch to prototype to defended final presentation. The project isn't a capstone that comes after the learning. It is the learning.

The process starts individually: every student pitches their own project idea to the section before groups form. That pitch is both a communication exercise and a de facto project marketplace; students are implicitly pitching to their future teammates as much as to the instructors. Teams of 3–4 then self-select around a shared interest in a problem, meaning group formation is driven by genuine investment in an idea rather than social convenience alone. Each section ends with 3–5 distinct projects running simultaneously, giving students a front-row view of multiple approaches to the design process.

The project unfolds across six assessed milestones that mirror real engineering practice:

Individual project pitch: each student presents their own idea to the section, identifies a problem, researches existing solutions, and proposes an approach. Teams self-select after pitches are complete.

Design proposal: submitted to the UAF Makerspace to access up to $300 in Center for Innovation funding. Teams scope their project, justify material choices, and commit to a build plan.

Progress update presentations: regular check-ins that keep teams accountable and surface problems early enough to fix them. Teams present what's working, what isn't, and what they're doing about it.

Prototype: the physical artifact, built and iterated across eight weeks of lab sessions. Graded on demonstrated function and evidence of iteration, not polish.

Final design presentation:  teams present their completed project, walking through design decisions, what they learned from failures, and what they'd do differently.

Design report: written documentation of the full project arc, with emphasis on lessons learned. Often the most honest and valuable writing students produce all semester.

Tool Introduction Sequence:

The first five weeks introduce students to the Makerspace toolset, Node-RED programming with Raspberry Pi, Autodesk Fusion 360 for CAD, 3D printing, laser cutting, and soldering. None of these is taught to mastery. The goal is to get students over the initial threshold of unfamiliarity so they can make informed choices about which tools their project actually needs.

Most students pivot away from Node-Red during the build phase, choosing MicroPython or Arduino based on their project requirements. That pivot is not a curriculum gap, it's students making an independent technical decision, which is closer to real engineering practice than following a prescribed tool sequence.

The biggest ongoing challenge is the breadth of the tool introduction sequence relative to the time available. Students get enough exposure to make a decision, but not always enough to feel confident, and the gap between "I know this tool exists" and "I can use it effectively on my project" varies widely across a section. I continue to look for ways to scaffold the early weeks, so students arrive at the build phase with more confidence and fewer tool-related blockers.