Engineering Capstone Project Ideas for High School Students
- Stephen Turban
- Jun 3
- 9 min read
If you're in high school and interested in engineering, working on a long-term project can be a good way to build skills and explore your interests. A capstone-style project involves choosing a problem, designing a solution, and improving it over time. It’s different from regular class assignments because it requires sustained effort and problem-solving.
Projects like these help you practice key engineering skills—like research, prototyping, and testing—and give you something concrete to reflect on in applications or interviews. They also show that you’re able to work independently and follow through on complex tasks.
What is a capstone project? How is it different from a regular project?
A capstone project is a long-term assignment that usually takes several weeks or even months to complete. It pulls together ideas from different lessons or subjects and often focuses on solving a real-world problem. You might build something, write a detailed report, or research a topic in depth.
Unlike a regular school project—which might cover just one topic or chapter—a capstone requires more planning, problem-solving, and independent thinking. You’re not just following directions; you’re making decisions, testing ideas, and explaining your process from start to finish.
Why should I do a capstone project in engineering as a high school student?
While working on your capstone project, you can learn how to plan a project, manage your time, and solve problems on your own. It pushes you to apply what you’ve learned in class to something real, which helps you understand the subject more deeply.
It can also make a huge difference in your college applications. A capstone project gives you something concrete to talk about—what you built, what challenges you faced, and what you learned. It shows you're serious about engineering and willing to stick with a project over time.
To help you get started, we have compiled a list of engineering capstone project ideas across various streams, such as biotech, robotics, computer engineering, and more!
Engineering Capstone Project Ideas for High School Students
Computer Engineering
Mental Health Support App
What to do: Develop a mobile application that offers mental health resources, mood tracking, and coping strategies for students.
Skill Sets: Mobile app development, user interface design, backend programming, and understanding of mental health resources.
Ideal for: Students interested in software development and mental health advocacy.
Drawbacks: Requires knowledge of programming languages and app development frameworks.
Tips: Work with mental health professionals to ensure content accuracy and sensitivity.
Smart Home Automation System
What to do: Create a system that allows users to control home appliances remotely using a smartphone or voice commands.
Skill Sets: IoT integration, programming, circuit design, and user interface development.
Ideal for: Students interested in smart technologies and home automation.
Drawbacks: May require investment in hardware components and understanding of various communication protocols.
Tips: Start with automating a single appliance and gradually expand the system's capabilities.
Educational Game Development
What to do: Design and develop an interactive game that teaches a specific subject or concept to students.
Skill Sets: Game design, programming, educational content creation, and graphic design.
Ideal for: Students passionate about education and game development.
Drawbacks: Balancing educational content with engaging gameplay can be challenging.
Tips: Test the game with peers to gather feedback and make iterative improvements.
Electrical Engineering
Solar-Powered Charging Station
What to do: Build a small station that uses solar panels to charge phones or other small devices. Add a storage battery so it can still work when there is no sun.
Skill Sets: You need to understand how solar panels work, how to wire circuits, and how to store energy in batteries.
Drawbacks: It only works well when there is sunlight. You also need to know how to choose and connect the right solar parts.
Ideal for: Students who want to learn how clean energy can be used in real life.
Tip: Use a battery that can hold enough charge for cloudy days or evenings.
Smart Lighting System
What to do: Make a system that changes how bright the lights are based on room brightness or whether someone is in the room.
Skill Sets: You will need to work with sensors, code a microcontroller, and build simple circuits.
Drawbacks: If it is not set up right, the lights might turn on or off at the wrong times.
Ideal for: Students who want to explore how sensors can help save power.
Tip: Let users control the lights manually too, in case the sensors miss something.
Wireless Energy Transfer Model
What to do: Build a small setup that shows how electricity can move through the air using coils. This is not for charging phones, just to show the idea works.
Skill Sets: You need to know how magnetic fields work, how to build coils, and how to match frequencies.
Drawbacks: It does not work well over long distances. You also need to be careful with safety.
Ideal for: Students who like hands-on physics and want to try something different.
Tip: Use very low power at first. Focus on getting the setup to light a small LED or similar.
Biomedical Engineering
Affordable Prosthetic Limb Prototype
What to do: Build a basic prosthetic limb using common materials and 3D printing. Focus on making it low-cost and usable for basic tasks.
Skill Sets: You will need to learn about how the body moves, how to design with CAD software, and which materials work well for daily use.
Drawbacks: Making sure it works well and feels comfortable takes testing and feedback from users.
Ideal for: Students who want to build helpful tools for people who have lost a limb.
Tip: Talk to medical professionals if you can, and test your design often to make small changes that help the user.
Smart Pill Dispenser
What to do: Make a device that gives out medicine at the right time and reminds the user if they forget.
Skill Sets: You need to work with simple electronics, write code to control timing, and understand how patients manage medicine.
Drawbacks: The timing and alerts must work exactly right. You also need to make it easy to use.
Ideal for: Students who want to solve everyday problems in health care.
Tip: Try adding phone reminders and make it simple to refill the medicine.
Wearable Health Monitor
What to do: Build a small device that tracks things like heart rate, body temperature, or oxygen level. Add alerts for when something is off.
Skill Sets: You will need to connect sensors to a microcontroller, write code, and know what normal health data looks like.
Drawbacks: Some sensors are not always accurate, and the device will need to run on battery for a long time.
Ideal for: Students who want to build tools that track health in real time.
Tip: Use free platforms to help with testing and showing the data.
Civil / Environmental Engineering
Earthquake-Resistant Building Model
What to do: Build a small model of a building that can stay stable during shaking. Try different designs and see which ones hold up best.
Skill Sets: You will use what you know about how buildings stand, test materials, and apply physics.
Drawbacks: Making a shaking platform that works like a real earthquake can take time and effort.
Ideal for: Students who want to study how buildings stay safe during disasters.
Tip: Try out different building shapes and support systems using a homemade shake table.
Low-Cost Insulated Housing for Extreme Climates
What to do: Make a model of a shelter that keeps people warm in cold places or cool in hot places. Use simple or recycled materials.
Skill Sets: You will need to understand how heat moves through materials and choose the right ones for insulation.
Drawbacks: You may not be able to test it in real weather, so you will need to simulate the heat or cold.
Ideal for: Students who want to design simple homes for tough conditions.
Tip: Use heat lamps or simple simulations to see how well your model controls temperature.
Rainwater Harvesting and Purification System
What to do: Build a small system that collects rainwater, filters it, and stores it for later use in a home or garden.
Skill Sets: You will work with basic plumbing, fluid flow, and water treatment.
Drawbacks: Making sure the water is safe to drink may be hard without lab tools.
Ideal for: Students who want to build simple tools that help save water.
Tip: Focus on filtering out dirt and use sunlight or UV for basic cleaning.
Air Quality Monitoring Station
What to Do: Build a station that measures and records data on pollutants like CO₂ or PM2.5 levels using sensors.
Skill Sets: Environmental science, data logging, sensor technology.
Ideal For: Students concerned about public health and pollution.
Drawbacks: Sensor calibration can be challenging; outdoor use may need waterproofing.
Tips: Display readings using an LCD or upload data to a web dashboard.
Flood-Resistant Bridge Model
What to Do: Build a scale model of a bridge that can withstand water currents and simulate rising water levels.
Skill Sets: Hydrology, structural design, physical testing.
Ideal For: Students curious about infrastructure in disaster zones.
Drawbacks: Needs careful material selection for scale simulation.
Tips: Use PVC or balsa wood and test using a water channel.
Aerospace Engineering
Water Bottle Rocket Optimization
What to do: Build a rocket that uses water and air pressure to launch. Try different changes to make it fly higher and farther.
Skill Sets: You will use ideas from physics, especially how forces work and how air flows around objects.
Drawbacks: The rocket can only go so high, and you will need to test it many times to make it better.
Ideal for: Students who like rockets or want to understand how objects fly.
Tip: Try changing the fin shape, the amount of water, and the bottle size to see what works best.
Drone Delivery Prototype
What to do: Create a drone setup that can carry a small item and drop it at a target spot.
Skill Sets: You will need to understand how drones move, how to control them, and how to guide them to a location.
Drawbacks: There may be rules about flying drones in some areas. The drone also cannot carry much weight.
Ideal for: Students who want to learn how flying machines can be used to move things.
Tip: Focus on simple drops rather than complex delivery systems.
Materials Science / General Engineering
Self-Healing Plastic Experiment
What to do: Test or create a type of plastic that can repair itself when it gets scratched or cracked. You might use heat or UV light to trigger the healing.
Skill Sets: You will need to understand chemistry, plastics, and how to set up experiments.
Drawbacks: You may need access to a lab for testing or making the plastic.
Ideal for: Students interested in new materials or nanotechnology.
Tip: Start by looking at existing self-healing plastics and try to create a basic version.
Recycled Plastic Construction Bricks
What to do: Create a way to turn recycled plastic into bricks that can be used for building small structures.
Skill Sets: You’ll learn about materials, mold making, and sustainability.
Drawbacks: Heating plastic safely can be tricky, and not all plastics are the same, which can affect the result.
Ideal for: Students who care about the environment and want to design eco-friendly building materials.
Tip: Work with plastics that melt at lower temperatures and choose safe materials for molds.
Recycled Plastic Construction Bricks
What to do: Create a way to turn recycled plastic into bricks that can be used for building small structures.
Skill Sets: Materials science, mold making, sustainability.
Drawbacks: Heating plastic safely can be tricky.
Ideal for: Students passionate about sustainability.
Tip: Use plastics that melt at lower temperatures and choose safe materials for molds.
Bicycle-Powered Phone Charger
What to Do: Design a mechanical system that converts pedaling energy into electricity to charge a phone.
Skill Sets: Mechanical design, electrical circuits, energy conversion.
Ideal For: Students interested in sustainable tech or kinetic energy projects.
Drawbacks: Output may be low without efficient gearing and energy storage.
Tips: Use a voltage regulator to stabilize charging output.
Robotics / Mechatronics
Autonomous Line-Following Robot
What to Do: Build a robot that uses sensors to follow a path without human input.
Skill Sets: Sensor integration, robotics programming, problem solving.
Ideal For: Students curious about robotics, automation, or electronics.
Drawbacks: Sensor calibration can be time-consuming.
Tips: Use a breadboard to test wiring before assembling the full robot.
Smart Trash Can That Sorts Waste
What to Do: Build a bin that uses sensors or image recognition to separate recyclables from waste.
Skill Sets: AI/ML (basic), mechanical actuation, sensor coding.
Ideal For: Students passionate about the environment and smart systems.
Drawbacks: Complexity increases with multiple material types.
Tips: Start with sorting by weight or size before adding image recognition.
Work on a capstone project of your own—apply to the Lumiere Research Scholar Program
Another potential capstone project can be pursuing independent research. If you’re interested, consider applying to one of the Lumiere Research Scholar Programs, selective online high school programs for students founded with researchers at Harvard and Oxford. Last year, we had over 4,000 students apply for 500 spots in the program! You can find the application form here.
Also check out the Lumiere Research Inclusion Foundation, a non-profit research program for talented, low-income students. Last year, we had 150 students on full need-based financial aid!
Stephen is one of the founders of Lumiere and a Harvard College graduate. He founded Lumiere as a PhD student at Harvard Business School. Lumiere is a selective research program where students work 1-1 with a research mentor to develop an independent research paper.
Image Source - Lumiere Education Logo