Engineered!: Engineering Design at Work

One's first reaction to this book might well be that it's a bit heavy on the cute illustrations and a bit light on content, but on a closer look that's not at all the case. The drawings have a busy, "Where's Waldo?", look, but there's a lot going on in them and they are worth careful examination. Once you get the way the individual chapters are organized, everything else falls into place. Each chapter emphasizes a different branch of engineering. We start with a stated problem that requires an engineering solution. We define and investigate the problem, develop some possible solutions, design/build an answer/prototype, and then test, modify and optimize. Different example challenges emphasize different aspects of this process, so the chapters are not repetitive. And the problems that are addressed really span a wide range of engineering endeavors. The organizing focus on different engineering fields is an important touch. "Engineering" encompasses a lot of different specialties and introducing young readers to all of the different fields is valuable, and might be a real eye opener for that young reader. So, we get aerospace, biomedical, chemical, mechanical, electrical, civil, geomatic, computer, and environmental engineering. Not bad at all. Whether you're looking for a STEM book or you just have a little budding LEGO maniac in the house this book could be a great interest and imagination grabber. A nice find. (Please note that I received a free advance will-self-destruct-in-x-days Adobe Digital copy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

I bought this as part of the 4th grade science curriculum from Blossom and Root. We haven’t even started yet and both of my kids are fascinated. I love the outline of the engineering process in the beginning. They love the “gross” problems that were solved (printing a skin substitute, solving a sewage problem), and it is really a great educational resource. The illustrations are fun and colorful so it helps hold their interest. The explanations are easy to understand. Highly recommend.

Interesting, and informational... but also fairly straight forward and underwhelming.. Not a ton of information for learning..

Great book, my son is 11 and really loved it

My daughter is an elementary teacher and I sent it to her 3 rd grade son. He seems interested in science and engineering. My daughter told me he seems to enjoy the book.

My boy absolutely loves this book!