Unit Overview

Students use the Engineering Design Process to design a reusable landing pad optimized to protect a package dropped from a height. Students learn about kinetic energy transfer and how changing a material’s shape or configuration can increase the amount of kinetic energy it absorbs during a collision.

  • Grades 6–8
  • Setting: In school
  • Science connection: Kinetic Energy Transfer
  • 8 lessons
  • 45–55 minutes per lesson
  • Student materials available in Spanish

Standards alignment

YES units align with state and national science standards, integrating seamlessly with popular middle school science curricula. View unit-specific Engineering Landing Pads Alignment or all Standards Alignments.

Unit Map

Students are introduced to engineering by designing a phone stand to solve an everyday problem.

Students learn about packaging waste and that they will engineer a landing pad for a drone delivery system. They explore kinetic energy transfer during collisions to establish design criteria.

Teams investigate how well different materials absorb kinetic energy by measuring the bounce height of a falling ping-pong ball.

Students explore how an object’s mass impacts its kinetic energy by dropping sand-filled balloons onto various arrangements of materials.

Students finalize the design requirements for their landing pads, brainstorm independently, and collaboratively develop an evidence-based plan for their design with their team.

Teams create their landing pads and rapidly iterate their designs to optimize for mass of the dropped object. 

Teams continue to iterate their designs to optimize for drop height and develop a final design.

Students assess their landing pad’s limitations, evaluate advantages and disadvantages, and present their ideas.

Computational Thinking Modules

Bounce Height Measurements

Students use a computer to collect precise data on how high a ping pong ball bounces on different landing materials. This module uses free MATLAB interactives from MathWorks.

  • 2 lessons
  • 45 minutes each

Delivery Notification Systems

Students design a delivery notification system to alert them when urgent items are delivered to a landing pad. This module uses BBC micro:bits.

  • 3 lessons
  • 45 minutes each

Our funders

Major support for this project has been provided by MathWorks.

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What’s Included?

  • Teacher Guide (PDF)
  • Teacher Slides (Google Slides)
  • Student Engineering Notebook (PDF or Google Slides)
  • Print Materials (PDF)
  • 2 Computer Science Modules