Digital Commons Network^™

How To Remember Names Lesson Plan, Madison Paige Davis

ENGS 15.11: Design and Education

This is an introductory lesson intended for any high school- or college-aged student who wants to learn how to deepen connections with others, whether for personal or professional relationships. Through a combination of lecturettes, discussions, reflection time, and activities/ quizzes, students will learn and apply their knowledge about the benefits, science, history, and strategies of remembering people’s names so that they are able to use names in future conversations. The final activity will be a simulation of real life scenarios where students will have to either remember and use a stranger’s name or practice asking for their name, whether they …

Rewiring Reality: The Neuroscience Behind Manifestation, Ellison J. Huang

ENGS 15.11: Design and Education

This lesson introduces students to the scientific processes behind manifestation. Through interactive activities, students will learn to critically analyze claims in the media and create their own manifestation routines. They will leave this lesson with practical tools for well-being and transferable critical thinking skills.

How To Elevate Your Note-Taking Skills, Alexander Cho

ENGS 15.11: Design and Education

One of the most crucial skills a student can have is effective and efficient note-taking abilities. Therefore, this interactive lesson transforms note-taking from a passive recording activity into an active learning strategy. Through discussions, activities, and reflections, students will understand the importance of note-taking, then learn techniques to take better notes before, during, and after class. Afterwards, we will dive into 4 different note-taking methods and students will be able to adapt these techniques to different content types, and develop personalized systems for review.

Audience Attention: A Lesson In Confident Public Speaking, Leah F. Stein

ENGS 15.11: Design and Education

We’ve all sat through a speech that lost our attention. This lesson helps students ensure their own isn’t one of them. This lesson serves as an introduction or a supplementary lesson in the art of public speaking. Many people have nerves about public speaking, so this lesson will provide students with tools to grow more confident in public speaking, specifically in keeping their audience engaged. Through discussions, a mini-lecture, and interactive speeches, students explore how rhetorical appeals (ethos, pathos, and logos) and the concept of identification help build a stronger connection with their audience. The lesson begins with a discussion …

Designing Your Next Read: How Psychology Shapes The Way We Choose Books, Stephanie M. Xu

ENGS 15.11: Design and Education

Designing Your Next Read invites students to explore the psychology behind everyday choices through the familiar act of picking a book. Using the lens of design psychology, the lesson examines why decision-making often feels overwhelming and how small shifts in perception, environment, and heuristics can make choices easier and more enjoyable. Students engage in interactive exercises, including a book-browsing activity, mini-lectures on choice biases, and a “Book Blurb” exercise, to reveal how heuristics such as availability, affect, and familiarity shape responses.

Through guided discussion and reflection, students connect psychological theories like the paradox of choice and decision paralysis to their …

Qualitative Interview Coding, Caroline M. Moore

ENGS 15.11: Design and Education

This lesson introduces undergraduate students to rigorous thematic analysis as a tool for gaining insights from qualitative interviews. Aimed at students with some familiarity in Design Thinking, it emphasizes the role of interviewing in understanding user experiences and informing human-centered research. This might be the first lesson in a multi-lesson sequence, allowing the next lesson to go deeper into insights of what design researchers gather from their thematic coding. Through a mix of lecture, individual coding, and small-group coding, students learn to distinguish between inductive and deductive coding and apply these methods to sample interviews. The lesson fosters active learning …

Grounded In Motion: Finding Calm Through Daily Stretching, Everett H. Tai

ENGS 15.11: Design and Education

This lesson targets undergraduate students, reframing stretching as an essential, evidence-based habit for long-term wellness and stress management. The lesson's primary goal is to empower students to confidently design and consistently apply a personalized routine that protects their mobility and independence. Students will master the core science, understanding that dynamic stretching may augment performance pre-exercise, while shorter static stretches can be performed without compromising muscle performance, and post-exercise stretching can reduce muscle pain perception. This lesson emphasizes proper execution, requiring students to warm up first with 5 to 10 minutes of light activity with focus on technique. This practical knowledge …

From Chaos To Cohesion: Building A Brand Kit, Brooke Kries

ENGS 15.11: Design and Education

From Chaos to Cohesion: Building a Brand Kit is a lesson designed for undergraduate students to show how a strong visual identity supports an organization’s mission and goals. Utilizing interactive instruction, guided exercises, individual exploration, and peer discussions, students will learn how elements, such as typography, logos, and color can shape public perception and align with audience expectations. By the end of the lesson, students will have created a sample brand kit and graphic to reflect an organization’s purpose and tone.

This lesson integrates marketing theory, real-life examples, and independent hands-on learning to encourage creativity, collaboration, and strategic thinking. Students …

Who Gets To Run?, Martine Gulliver

ENGS 15.11: Design and Education

In this lesson, students will explore how jogging—an activity largely perceived as one of most accessible sports—has historically excluded Black Americans. By analyzing 1) historical maps from major jogging hubs and 2) historical & contemporary running media, students will uncover how discriminatory housing policies and lack of mainstream media representation worked in tandem to create structural obstacles within a supposedly inclusive space. Students will connect this idea of running as a ‘white’ activity to modern-day perceptions of Black runners and instances of racial violence. Beyond the knowledge itself, students should walk away from this lesson with confidence and motivation to …

When Dollar General Comes To Town, Benjamin Williams

ENGS 15.11: Design and Education

Since 2008, Dollar General has grown from 8,222 to 18,130 locations, becoming a staple of rural communities across America. These discount stores have had, and continue to have, a widespread impact on these communities. This lesson aims to inform students of these impacts, while also addressing how towns are responding to the entrance of Dollar Generals. The lesson will equip students to consider the different perspectives involved in this trend. Key concepts that will be discussed include food deserts, rural transportation difficulties, labor costs, and pricing competition.

Voices Of Rebellion: A Lesson On Feminism, Identity, And Popular Music, Michelle Vasquez

ENGS 15.11: Design and Education

This lesson focuses on the rise of the feminist punk rock movement Riot Grrrl, and the political, social, and cultural conversations brought about by the band that created the genre, Bikini Kill. Students will explore the history of the genre and how its emergence had a great influence on political movements, female empowerment, the 3rd-wave of feminism, as well as the punk rock scene as a whole. Through engaging discussions, lyrical and performance analysis, and scholarly research on popular music, the lesson will highlight the ways in which artists have represented, subverted, and critiqued societal norms and politics surrounding gender …

Mangroves: A Lesson On Modeling Changing Shorelines, Willa Skye

ENGS 15.11: Design and Education

This lesson is an overview of storm barriers, specifically mangroves and how they maintain shorelines. It is meant to offer a visual experience of coastline protection and provide a background for deeper understanding about intertidal zones and their conservation. Students will spend time creating a solution to a flooding problem by making a mock coast and storm barrier. To wrap-up the lesson, students will pair up, then reflect on their model and then individually write or draw their takeaways.

Being Your Authentic Self, Thomas Mitchell

ENGS 15.11: Design and Education

This lesson reviews what it means to be authentically you while also reminding students that there is no one right answer to the question what does it mean to be your authentic self. This lesson will also cover norms within greek culture and life on college campuses. Students will work through scenarios, reflect, comment on a video, and complete an exit ticket in order to demonstrate an understanding of how to navigate Greek spaces while being their authentic selves. They will also apply what they’ve learned during the lesson in real life to make other people feel comfortable within Greek …

Sit Down, But Not For Too Long, Laura Yam

ENGS 15.11: Design and Education

This lesson introduces undergraduate students to the concept of hostile architecture through an in-depth exploration of anti-homeless bench design in urban environments. It aims to help students identify both visible and disguised design features that deter unhoused individuals from using public spaces, while encouraging critical reflection on the ethical, social, and cultural implications of these practices.

The Philosophies Of Swedish Mushroom Hunting, Kelly Zreloff

ENGS 15.11: Design and Education

This lesson invites students to explore Swedish mushroom hunting as both a cultural and environmental philosophy. Through a mix of mini lectures, storytelling, and outdoor experiential learning, students first learn about Allemansrätten (Sweden’s Right of Public Access) and how mushroom hunting evolved from post-war necessity to modern well-being practice. Students then reconstruct “a day in the forest” to reinforce the lecture’s key points about stewardship, secrecy, and serenity before participating in a quiet “hunt” activity in Pine Park.

By engaging curiosity first and empathy second, students come to understand that mushroom hunting is not only about harvesting food but about …

Your Words Matter, Sophie Thai

ENGS 15.11: Design and Education

This lesson focuses on helping students understand the profound impact that affirmations and gratitude can have on their mindset and well-being. Applicable for everyone, students are encouraged to take their learnings and practice them in real life, hoping to promote a shift in perspective. Students will be able to recognize the benefits of their words and the way they speak to themselves, and understand how they can make changes in their lifestyle.

In this lesson, students will have a chance to reflect and learn about the science behind affirmations and gratitude while being introduced to strategies used to implement them …

Using Design Thinking To Upcycle, Lily Chabica

ENGS 15.11: Design and Education

This 60-minute lesson introduces the power of design thinking as a tool for sustainability. Through short discussions, visual examples, and a hands-on “Trash Island” design challenge, students will explore how creativity can transform waste into value. The session combines theory (understanding upcycling vs. recycling) with active practice (building prototypes from found materials). By the end, students will connect environmental responsibility to personal agency. They will realize that design can drive everyday impact.

Confronting Indecision, Lane Allison Murray

ENGS 15.11: Design and Education

This course aims to increase students' understanding of indecision and how to confront it. The class provides insight into how the fear of the unknown holds people back from making decisions and about understanding one's values as a means to combat indecision. Students and teachers alike explore instances of indecision and evaluate their own impulses & thought processes by reflecting on the deeper reasons for their choices. Students will increase their comfort level of asking themselves and their peers questions about the values that guide them and, in doing so, strengthen their relationships with themselves and others.

The Hemi-Hand, Shane Bauer, Supriya Ganti, Madelyn Goebel, Harry Leiter, Danny Will

ENGS 89/90 Reports

Current rehabilitation devices, such as splints and therapeutic gloves, aid spastic hemiparetic patients but are often impractical to don independently due to constant muscle contraction. Therefore, hemiparetic patients need a user-friendly method of extension in their affected hand to improve motor coordination, prevent contracture, and maintain muscle balance. The purpose of the device is to make hand expansion technology available to a wider range of individuals. We achieve this by creating a customizable device which both simplifies the donning process, and effectively expands the customers contracted hand. The device uses a base for stabilization, and a detachable cone. The cone …

Control System Development To Improve Outcomes In Policing Of Gun Crimes, Raylene Guo, Sara Magdalena Gómez, Sean Lee, Hongke Lu, Mihir Singh, Scottie Yang

ENGS 89/90 Reports

Law enforcement officials struggle to identify perpetrators of shootings quickly, reliably, and effectively. Data indicates that certain areas are more prone to shootings. Most shootings occur in dense urban areas that makes it difficult to discern relevant individuals related to a shooting and perpetrators of shootings often flee the scene of the crime. We created a cost effective control system that rapidly and accurately identifies individuals in the area in which a gunshot is fired. In order to accomplish this, we integrate existing acoustic sensor technology with cellular phone identification techniques. The acoustic sensors detect and distinguish gunshots and then …

Stolmate 2.0: Independent Takeoff And Landing Measurements For Private Pilots, Dakota Black, Arun Guruswamy, James Quirk, Sydney Savarese, Veronica Yarovinsky

ENGS 89/90 Reports

Takeoff and landing are the most challenging phases of flight. Short Takeoff and Landing (STOL) performance metrics quantify how efficiently an aircraft minimizes takeoff and landing distance. These measurements ensure safety and have even become the basis of STOLcompetitions, where pilots compete to minimize their takeoff and landing distance. While pilots use mathematical models to predict STOL distances, there are no available means for pilots to measure their true STOL performance instantaneously, affordably, and easily. STOLmate 1.0 laid the foundation for instantaneous, accessible STOL performance reporting; however, the current device requires labor-intensive manufacturing, has reliability issues in certain weather and …

Two-Phase Heat Exchanger Design For A Cryocooler, Matthew Timofeev, Ussaid Mustajab, Omar Sharief, Munachimso Onuoha, Ozgur Tuna Ozturk

ENGS 89/90 Reports

Recuperators are valuable components in refrigeration-cycle devices as they move heat between separate stages within the cycle, lessening the work done by compressors and improving the overall efficiency of the device. For Creare, a Hanover-based engineering firm and our sponsor, a recuperator must be designed to accommodate a mixed-gas flow at cryogenic temperatures. However, upon condensation, mixed-gas becomes a two-phase stream giving rise to heat exchange inefficiencies as the two phases separate and behave thermally distinctly. One way to address this is by incorporating a large surface area porous metal into the recuperator body to remix the two phases into …

Osteophone To Detect Fracture In The Field, Noah Dunleavy, Micah Green, Hannah Chipman, Gabe Landi, Kai Etheridge

ENGS 89/90 Reports

When assessing long bone fractures, X-ray is the state-of-the-art solution. However, its inaccessibility due to cost and distance poses a barrier to nearly half of the global population, and this lack of access inhibits prehospital triage and assessment. Currently, there are no affordable, portable options that can not only rule out— but also detect the presence of— fracture. We are developing a device that implements the principles of sound wave attenuation that underlie other state-of-the-art alternatives to X-ray, such as the clinician administered tuning fork and stethoscope method, but with improved accuracy and objectivity. This approach uses a microcontroller to …

Interventional Radiology Wire Management Device, Daniel Gyaakye Amoateng, Abby Chase, Victoria Cubina-Lopez, Timo Hemphill, Justin Pavan, Kristine Suritis

ENGS 89/90 Reports

Interventional radiologists and other medical professionals perform a variety of procedures that require the use of guidewires and catheters, but unfortunately OR management of these instruments is challenging. Currently, a bowl with internal ridging holds the wires in a heparinized saline bath. This is frustrating and insufficient, as wire identification, separation, and removal is time consuming and difficult. Our device, engineered in collaboration with Dartmouth Health, has addressed these issues by employing a multi-compartment approach to guidewire and catheter storage. Current storage strategies and saline access are still possible, with an open central compartment. Our design also has a compartment …

Electric Dyno Design, Avery Widen, Ariadna Garcia, Davis Golick, Chloé Hamilton Gilbert

ENGS 89/90 Reports

Dartmouth Formula Racing (DFR) is a student-run group that designs, builds, and competes with a custom, formula-style race car in two annual SAE events: the Formula Hybrid + Electric (FH+E) competition in New Hampshire and Formula SAE in Michigan. Although these competitions have distinct rules, many technical requirements overlap—particularly regarding battery performance and safety. This project addresses DFR’s need for a standard, robust method to assess the performance of its car’s battery pack under simulated racing conditions. We iterated upon a battery discharge apparatus (BDA) to create a validated testing protocol, a functional BDA and 50V battery segment with integrated …

Design Of Experiments For Improving Mortar Strength Through Metal Fiber Additives, Pía Alexander, Joshua Baxter, Billy Bender, Selen Kazmirci, Travis Short, Ryan Tripp

ENGS 89/90 Reports

This research project investigates the improvement of mortar strength by incorporating metal fiber additives, to develop a high-performance mortar for construction applications where traditional concrete with coarse aggregates is not viable. Sponsored by Creare LLC who have received a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the U.S. Department of Defense, the upper limits of metal fiber loading in mortar are explored to achieve compressive and flexural strengths that are similar to traditional concrete. The study uses a design of experiments: varying fiber type and concentration to determine the impact on mechanical properties, including compressive and flexural strength while maintaining …

Wheel Slip Detection For An Electric Racecar, Aaryan Agrawal, Liam Cotter, Wyatt Ellison, Will Foox, Sasha Ries

ENGS 89/90 Reports

This project developed a reliable wheel slip detection system for Dartmouth Formula Racing's (DFR) electric racecar, the first step for implementing traction control. The existing wheel speed sensors on DFR's vehicle ("Cherri") were not producing reliable or readable data. This limits the team's ability to implement effective traction control. Our solution includes a comprehensive hardware and software package that accurately measures, filters, and processes wheel speed data to calculate slip ratio - a key parameter for implementing traction control. The system utilizes high-resolution rotary encoders mounted on the front wheels that sample at 5-20ms intervals, runs hardware based quadrature decoders …

Mahjouba Initiative Ebike Charging In Morocco, Margaret Atkins, Christian Hudanich, Justin Kim, Lane Myshrall

ENGS 89/90 Reports

The Mahjouba Initiative, led by artist Eric van Hove, merges Moroccan craftsmanship with modern engineering to develop locally sourced, sustainably produced e-bikes for rural communities. A team from Dartmouth College’s ENGS 90 conducted a feasibility analysis of a scalable, affordable e-bike charging station for deployment in Tissint, Tata, Morocco, where transportation infrastructure limitations hinder economic development. This analysis supports a battery-swapping pilot as a crucial step in advancing the Mahjouba Initiative’s mission to develop domestically powered transportation. The proposed charging station includes on-grid and off-grid (solar-powered) options, ensuring flexible deployment based on available energy infrastructure. Key design considerations include charging …

Rainwater Harvesting Instrumentation Design, Daysia Charles, Jacob Dresser, Margaret Frazier, Sophie Goldberg, Rubi Leon, Clare Mitchell

ENGS 89/90 Reports

Mexico City faces a severe water crisis, with millions of residents lacking reliable access to clean water. Isla Urbana, a non-profit organization that develops rainwater harvesting (RWH) systems to address this issue, has installed over 43,000 systems to provide essential water for underserved communities. However, a key challenge remains: there is no reliable way to measure the amount of water harvested by these systems. The current water meters in use are expensive, technically complex, and often require Wi-Fi for operation, making them inaccessible in many locations. To address this, the team found a cost-effective, simple, and accessible water meter and …

Pulse Electrothermal De-Icing Air Source Heat Pumps For More Efficient Residential Renewable Energy Systems, Madeleine Carr, Abby Hughes, Thea Kunzle, Justin Sapun

ENGS 89/90 Reports

Air source heat pumps (ASHPs) are increasingly being adopted as energy-efficient alternatives to traditional oil and gas furnaces for heating and cooling homes. However, in colder climates, these systems often face significant challenges due to frequent icing on the outdoor condenser fins during winter months. This icing condition drastically hinders performance by reducing efficiency, leading to higher energy consumption and increased operational costs. In the most common conventional defrosting method, the reversing valve sends refrigerant from the indoor space to the outdoor unit to melt the ice, effectively cooling the room. This defrosting process is both energy intensive and intermittently …