In Design and Engineering for Complex Global Challenges, students will design, prototype, and test a real-world solution to a complex challenge with MIT instructors and community partners from around the world. Class instructors Heewon Lee (industrial designer) and Dr. Dan Sweeney (mechanical engineer) will teach the course with support from MIT students. The course embraces MIT’s mens et manus (mind and hand) approach, combining daily lectures with hands-on making so students learn practical skills and the reasoning behind design decisions.

At the onset of the class, students will be presented with several carefully selected challenge briefs. Students will then choose a challenge and form small teams based on interest and alignment. The challenges will focus on a specific community but will range across various topics such as smallholder agriculture, clean water, household energy, affordable housing, and accessible mobility. Past student projects include a flow-powered water pump with an indigenous community in São Paulo, Brazil, and an elephant alert and deterrent system in Tanzania.

Following team formation, students will learn and apply the design process and gain knowledge and skills in information gathering, user research, effective teamwork, ideation, concept selection, prototyping, and evaluation. At different points during the course, the team will receive information and input from a local community partner in Tanzania, Uganda, India, or another location through resources and collaboration portals (65-inch Samsung Smart TVs, webcams, and conferencing tools).

Although most of the prototyping will focus on using basic fabrication methods with hand tools and accessible materials, students will also have supervised access to equipment and mechanized tools in the D-Lab makerspace. The structure of the class will include daily lectures, discussions, and reflections complemented by hands-on making, mentorship, and feedback to reinforce concepts around design thinking, making, and ethical research.