Hands-On Engineering
At York College of Pennsylvania's Kinsley School of Engineering, Sciences and Technology, students don't just study engineering, they build it. From first year through senior capstone, our students apply classroom theory to hands-on projects: designing an award-worthy Formula SAE race car, engineering a solar-powered lighting system for a remote village, building a software-defined radio, and preparing an eVTOL aircraft for national competition. These projects reflect York College's ABET-accredited, project-based approach to education, where students solve real problems, work across disciplines, and graduate with the practical experience employers are looking for.
First Year Projects
From day one, first-year students work in teams to design and build hands-on solutions to real problems.
Let There Be Light
What if your first engineering project could change how an entire community lives after dark? In ECE100, you'll be challenged to design a portable, solar-powered lighting system for a remote village of 500 people who currently rely on candles and kerosene lamps for light. Using a shared solar charging station in the village square, your device will need to store enough energy during the day to provide safe, reliable light for reading and writing at night. It must turn on automatically only when needed and hit at least 80% electrical efficiency. Your prototype will also need to be low-cost, energy-efficient, easy to recharge and operate, and built to withstand dust and moisture. It's a hands-on introduction to combining electronics, sensors, renewable energy, and human-centered design to solve a real global need.
Miniature Golf
In FYS115, your entire first-year class of Mechanical, Civil, Electrical, and Computer Engineering majors teams up for a project unlike any other: designing and building three themed miniature golf courses, together. You'll create 3-D solid models and get hands-on with 3-D printers, metalworking, and woodworking machines to bring your holes to life. Then, you'll add microcontrollers, electric motors, and electronic sensors to make each hole interactive. It all comes together on mini golf night, when family, friends, and the community come out to play the courses you built and celebrate your first big engineering win.
Engineering Design Challenges
Students design, build, and test their own prototype devices, tackling a new challenges every year.
Software Designed Radio Project
What if you could build a radio that runs almost entirely on code? That's the idea behind a Software Defined Radio (SDR), which replaces traditional analog hardware with flexible, software-based components so it can operate across a wide range of frequencies. In this project, you'll design and build a functional SDR capable of transmitting and receiving signals using amplitude, frequency, and quadrature modulation. Along the way, you'll get hands-on experience with real-world communication systems, including signal modulation, data encoding, and the integration of analog and digital electronics. You'll leave with stronger skills in embedded programming and system-level design, the same skills used to build the communication systems behind everyday technology.
Machine Design
Every year, ME380 students design a prototype device from scratch, and no two years look the same. Past projects have included black walnut crackers, sawdust pellet presses, wind turbine prototypes, and water pumps for remote areas. In 2025, the challenge was a kitchen apple juicer. You'll design and analyze your device, then build a working prototype to demonstrate at the end of the semester. Along the way, you'll be pushed to balance competing priorities like size, weight, efficiency, safety, and aesthetics, real trade-offs engineers face every day.
Capstone Projects
In their final year, students apply everything they've learned to a real, hands-on engineering challenge from start to finish.
Drone Capstone
York College's Spartan Skyforce team was one of only 20 colleges and universities nationwide selected to compete in the 2025-26 Vertical Flight Society Design-Build-Vertical Flight competition. Fifteen senior Electrical and Mechanical Engineering students designed, built, and flew a six-motor electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft tailored to a wildfire emergency response mission, complete with autonomous flight and AI-assisted targeting. Faculty called it the strongest showing they've seen from the program to date.
Formula SAE Capstone
Every year, Mechanical, Electrical, and Computer Engineering students team up to design, build, and race their own open-wheeled Formula-style race car, then take it to Michigan International Speedway to compete against other colleges and universities in both racing and design judging. Students split into subteams to tackle the frame, suspension, powertrain, and aerodynamics, getting real hands-on experience with the kind of teamwork and problem-solving used in the automotive and motorsports industries. And yes, students drive the car.