Virtual Labs
Offer your students a hands-on introduction to engineering. Our virtual labs simulate real-world projects designed by expert engineers so students gain unique insight and understanding into the world of engineering—all at no cost to your school.
Why virtual labs?
Awakens Student Curiosity
Adapts to Fit Your Schedule
Our virtual labs

3D Printing — Medical Applications
+Curriculum Connections:
- Manufacturing / Mechanical Engineering: Designing and constructing prosthetics
- Biomedical Engineering: Application of anatomy to mechanical design
Students will be able to:
- Identify various applications of 3D printing in medicine
- Analyze the anatomy of a prosthetic arm, hand, and finger
- Design and build their own prosthetic finger
- Advance their TinkerCAD skills
- Understand drawing and dimensioning
- Apply client details to their own prosthetic design

3D Printing — Product Development
+Curriculum Connections
- Manufacturing Engineering: Designing and constructing products.
Students will be able to:
- Describe and explain the different types of manufacturing
- Identify the various fields that utilize 3D printing
- Use TinkerCad software to design their various products

Air Vehicles — Aerodynamics
+Curriculum Connections:
- Physics: Newton’s Laws, Fluid Flow, Balance of Forces
- Intro to Engineering: Iterative Design Process, Functional Analysis, Open-Ended Design Problems
Students will be able to:
- Analyze real-world problems and use critical thinking skills in order to solve them
- Collect and analyze data
- Explain the engineering process as it pertains to their design
- Understand the 6 degree of freedom motion of an airplane
- Describe the forces on an airplane
- Analyze airplane performance through precision and accuracy

App Development
+Curriculum Connections:
- Coding Vocabulary
- Coding Concepts
Students will be able to:
- Analyze real-world problems and use critical thinking skills in order to solve them
- Explore the variety of coding languages
- Describe the difference between front-end and back-end design
- Design and build an app in MIT App Inventor
- Customize App
- Explain the engineering process as it pertains to their app

Bioinformatics - Genetic Engineering
+In this lab, students will receive a hands-on introduction to this cutting-edge field, learning the importance of using novel technologies to diagnose and treat diseases with a genetic basis. Using a brief list of symptoms and their newfound knowledge regarding bioinformatics, students will diagnose two patients, Patient X and Patient Y, while compiling information about the proteins involved in their respective diseases.
Curriculum Connections:
- Aligns with biology and computer science curriculums in high schools.
- Appropriate for:
- Intro Biology class
- Intro computer science class
- AP/IB/upper-level biology class
- AP/IB/upper-level computer science class
- Upper-level engineering/tech-ed class
Students will be able to:
- Engage in the engineering design and iterative process
- Analyze complex real-world problems through a biological lens
- Follow specific criteria in order to problem solve by making informed and specific search queries
- Discover and understand the importance of bioinformatics and sequencing to diagnose and treat diseases

Biomechanical: Assistive Technology & Devices
+Biomechanical: Assistive Technology & Devices
Curriculum Connections:
- Electrical Engineering: using math, science, and engineering concepts to make the hardware to support an eye tracking device
- Computer Science: using coding knowledge to produce the software to support an eye tracking device
- Biomedical Engineering: applying math, science, and engineering concepts to biology and medicine to create eye tracking solutions
Geometry: the branch of mathematics that deals with the measurement, properties, and relationships of points, lines, angles, surfaces, and solids
Students will be able to –
- Analyze real-world problems and use critical thinking skills in order to solve them
- Explore developments in eye tracking technology.
- Understand how eye tracking can be used to help people with physical limitation communicate
- Design a model for an eye using the materials given.
- Use geometry to understand how a computer can track eye movement
- Explain the engineering process as it pertains to their design and reflect on opportunities to improve it.
- Understand that technology needs to be made with user experience in mind.

Bridges
+Curriculum Connections:
- Physics: Newton’s Laws
- Environmental Science: Human Population; Biodiversity
- Geometry: Property of shapes; polyhedra
- Introduction to Engineering: Structural Analysis, Open Ended Design Problems
Students will be able to:
- Engage in the Engineering Design Process
- Analyze complex real-world problems following specific criteria in order to problem solve
- Discover and understand the variety of ways bridges can be designed as well as used in the present day
- Creatively design a bridge using materials at home
- Reflect and explain their thinking through videos

Cybersecurity
+Curriculum Connections:
- Cybersecurity: the state of being protected against the criminal or unauthorized use of electronic data, or the measures taken to achieve this
- Software Engineering: the systematic application of engineering approaches to the development of software
- Computer Engineering: a branch of engineering that integrates several fields of computer science and electronic engineering required to develop computer hardware and software
Students will be able to:
- Understand the importance of cybersecurity
- Analyze different types of cyber attacks
- Describe how to identify phishing attacks
- Practice using different methods of encryption

Drug Delivery
+Curriculum Connections:
- Aligns with chemistry and biology curriculums in high school
- Chemical Engineering: using math, science, and engineering concepts to design an enteric coating to delay the release of colored tablets inside the human body
- Biomedical Engineering: designing and constructing drug delivery devices
Students will be able to:
- Analyze real-world problems and use critical thinking skills in order to solve them
- Explore developments in drug delivery systems
- Design and build a small-scale dual delayed drug release delivery system using material provided
- Explain the engineering process as it pertains to their design and reflect on opportunities to improve it

Electric Vehicles
+Curriculum Connections:
- Mechanical Engineering: using math, science, and engineering concepts to design a vehicle that moves efficiently with an electric motor
Students will be able to:
- Analyze real-world problems and use critical thinking skills in order to solve them
- Explore developments in electric vehicle technology and batteries
- Design and build an electric vehicle using the material provided
- Explain the engineering process as it pertains to their design and reflect on opportunities to improve it

Embedded Systems - Circuit Design
+Curriculum Connections:
- Physics: Ohm’s Law and Circuit Analysis
- Computer Science: Iterative Processes, C Programming Language, Coding Design Process
Students will be able to:
- Learn more about electrical engineering and computer science with a hands-on experience
- Use and Identify several components in the Arduino system, including LEDs, potentiometers, and resistors
- Have a basic understanding of how the Arduino system works
- Use the C coding language with the Arduino computer application
- Create their own Arduino-based projects

Green Hydrogen
+Green Hydrogen
Curriculum Connections:
- Chemistry: Redox reactions, electrolysis
- Environmental Engineering: using math, science, and engineering concepts to protect the living organisms on Earth
- Environmental Science: Greenhouse gasses, decarbonization, climate change
- Chemical Engineering: using math, science, and engineering concepts to produce solutions using chemical processes
Students will be able to:
- Analyze real-world problems and use critical thinking skills in order to solve them
- Work through and understand the engineering design process
- Produce green hydrogen by building an electrolysis cell
- Collect and analyze data

Machine Learning
+Curriculum Connections:
- Physics: 2D-Motion; Projectile Motion
- Freshman Computing: Predictive Analysis
- Statistics: Plotting Trendlines; Modeling
Students will be able to:
- Define machine learning and provide real world applications for where it is used
- Describe the engineering design process and apply it to the design and construction of a catapult
- Develop a mathematical model that describes the performance of the catapult
- Create an algorithm based on the performance analysis of the catapult

Networks
+For novice programmers, students will use mBlock, a block coding software, to program a virtual drone to travel the route they solved for in the previous part.
If students have more familiarity with coding, students will explore a Python program in Google Colab to model and solve the traveling salesman problem.
Curriculum Connections:
- Algebra 2/Precalculus: Combinatorics; Linear Algebra
- Intro to Computer Science: Primitive Types; Iterations
- Advanced Mathematics: Graph Theory; Combinatorics
- Environmental: Pandemics
- AP Computer Science: Algorithms
Students will be able to:
- Solve the Traveling Salesman Problem
- Learn about a distance matrix
- Learn how to solve computer science-related problems
- Program a virtual drone of your own

Phototherapy - Biomedical Engineering
+Curriculum Connections:
- Biomedical Engineering
- Physics and math
- Energy of sunlight
Students will be able to:
- Discover the role of light within the medical field
- Learn the different characteristics of sunlight
- Work through the Engineering Process
- Create and design a medical treatment using technology
- Use mathematical formulas in order to analyze the effectiveness of the design solution

Renewable Energy
+Curriculum Connections:
- Environmental Engineering: using math, science, and engineering concepts to protect the living organisms on Earth
Students will be able to:
- Analyze real-world problems and use critical thinking skills in order to solve them
- Explore & describe renewable energy
- Design and build a solar-powered turbine
- Design and build wind turbine blade prototypes
- Collect and analyze data
- Explain the engineering process as it pertains to their design

Robotics - Intro to Coding
+Curriculum Connections:
- Computer Science: Block Programming, Python, Coding Design Process
- Intro to Engineering: Engineering Design Process
Students will be able to:
- Learn more about electrical engineering and computer science with a hands-on experience
- Understand the basics of robotics systems
- Use the Coding Design Process to write code and improve it upon analysis
- Critically think in order to create their own set of solutions to their puzzles.

Sound & Noise Pollution
+Curriculum Connections:
- Acoustic Engineering: Design, analysis and control of sound
- Sound Engineering: Design and manage sound levels and outputs, take care of sound equipment for live recording
Students will be able to:
- Identify basic terms related to sound
- Understand the effects of noise pollution
- Design a sound barrier to reduce levels of noise pollution
- Learn about career opportunities related to sound
- Learn about how to record data related to sound

Space Vehicles — Astrodynamics
+Curriculum Connections:
- Physics: Newton’s Laws, Fluid Flow, Orbital Mechanics
- Intro to Engineering: Iterative Design Process, Functional Analysis, Open-Ended Design Problems
Students will be able to:
- Analyze real-world problems and use critical thinking skills in order to solve them
- Collect and analyze data
- Explain the engineering process as it pertains to their design
- Understand space mission phases
- Describe the forces on a balloon rocket
- Analyze rocket performance through data collection and simulation

Water Treatment
+Curriculum Connections:
- Environmental Science: Water Issues and Water Pollution
- Earth Science: The Water Cycle
Students will be able to:
- Describe and explain actions that contribute to your water footprint
- Mimic a water clarification process
- Design and create a water filtration system
- Identify and explain various steps involved in the process of water treatment
- Analyze a water sample before and after it undergoes a water filtration process
- Use the iterative process to optimize a design
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