Startup to Scale Kit

With the Startup to Scale Kit, students step into the world of modern manufacturing to investigate how everyday products are designed, built, optimized, and delivered at scale. Through hands-on challenges, structured simulations, and guided analysis, they examine how systems, people, materials, and decisions interact to influence the outcome of any production process.

From individual introductory builds to full team-based assembly lines, students model real manufacturing environments by mapping systems, identifying bottlenecks, improving workflows, and evaluating the trade-offs that engineers navigate every day. Throughout these activities, they explore how cost, safety, ergonomics, quality, and environmental impacts guide engineering decisions in authentic industrial contexts.

This Launch-level STEM kit is well-suited for students in grades 9–12 and includes multi-step activities, engineering tools, and opportunities for open-ended analysis that strengthen systems thinking, collaboration, and complex problem-solving abilities.

What they'll do:

• Analyze manufacturing processes
• Examine systems 
• Build and test roller-based assembly line models 
• Refine production workflows 
• Perform cost-benefit and risk analyses 
• Examine trade-offs related to safety, reliability, environmental impact, and social considerations

Students will explore questions like:

• How do constraints related to time, labor, layout, and materials influence a system’s total capacity?
• Why do bottlenecks emerge, and how can workflow redesign improve throughput?
• What hidden costs influence manufacturing systems, and how do ergonomics and worker well-being affect engineering choices?
• How do engineers weigh options related to efficiency, cost, safety, and environmental impact?

• 1 Bottle
• 2 box
• 2 Car
• 6 Cardboard Tube
• 1 Colored Pencils, pack
• 7 Dowel
• 1 Glue Stick
• 12 Paper, construction
• 6 Paper, drawing
• 6 Paper, grid
• 20 Paper, origami
• 7 Paper Doll Template
• 1 Scissors
• 3 String
• 1 Stop Watch
• 1 Tape
• 1 Tape Measure

• NGSS science standards alignment
  • HS-ETS1-1: Analyze a major global challenge to specify qualitative and quantitative criteria and constraints for solutions that account for societal needs and wants.
  • HS-ETS1-2: Design a solution to a complex real-world problem by breaking it down into smaller, more manageable problems that can be solved through engineering.
  • HS-ETS1-3: Evaluate a solution to a complex real-world problem based on prioritized criteria and trade-offs that account for a range of constraints, including cost, safety, reliability, and aesthetics, as well as possible social, cultural, and environmental impacts.