Increased emphasis on K-12 engineering education, including the advent and incorporation of the NGSS in many curricula, has spurred the need for increased engineering learning opportunities for younger students. This is particularly true for students from underrepresented minority populations or economically disadvantaged schools, who traditionally lag behind their peers in the pursuit of STEM majors or careers. To address this deficit, we have created the Hk Maker Lab, a summer program for New York City high school students that introduces them to biomedical engineering design. The students learn the design process through a series of interactive workshops and laboratory activities. In coordination with learning the process, students apply the engineering design process to identify real-world problems and create testable prototypes. The students explore the entrepreneurial aspects of their projects, creating basic business plans. The program has been successful in creating a diverse set of program participants who have learned engineering design and created solutions to open-ended problems. This paper presents the structure of the Hk Maker Lab and preliminary assessments of the program, providing a basic framework for those similarly interested in creating STEM education opportunities for high school students. INTRODUCTION The current deficit in the quality and quantity of K-12 STEM education in the U.S. (National Science Board, 2007; US Department of Education, 2008; Jeffers et al., 2004; Katehi et al., 2009; Kimmel et al., 2007; Project 2061, 1993; Silverstein et al., 2009) is particularly detrimental to underrepresented minority (URM) students who often do not have access to, or elect not to take, STEM courses (Griffith, 2010). One reason for this shortcoming is the rift between STEM education and the practical utility of STEM knowledge. The lack of elementary and secondary STEM education propagates throughout subsequent academic and professional pursuits: African Americans and Hispanics or Latinos account for only 16.1% of students enrolled in undergraduate engineering degree programs (NSF, 2017). Significantly, even when minority students pursue four-year STEM majors, only 13.2% of African Americans and 15.9% of Hispanics complete their STEM degrees (HERI, 2010). This lack of STEM education manifests in minorities not attaining STEM-related occupations: African Americans and Hispanics comprise a combined 11% of the engineering and science workforce (NSF, 2017). The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), which are being incorporated into an increasing number of K-12 curricula, emphasize engineering and design principles. The National Academy of Engineering and the National Research Council Center for Education stress that STEM education should include engineering design training; however, there remains a lack of cohesive engineering thrusts in primary and secondary school curricula (Katehi et al., 2009). This gap misses a huge opportunity, as engineering design presents a number of educational advantages including but not limited to: fostering and enhancing skills for identifying and developing solutions to problems; encouraging students to think critically about important societal challenges; and linking classroom outcomes to tangible artifacts that can promote continued interest in STEM. To address the pressing need for high school engineering design education, we have created the HYPOTHEkids (Hk) Maker Lab, a summer program that introduces high school students from underserved communities to biomedical engineering (BME) and the engineering design process (EDP). The primary goals of the Hk Maker Lab are to: 1. Increase high school students’, particularly those from underrepresented minority groups and economically disadvantaged schools, appreciation for STEM via an emphasis on engineering and the EDP, 2. To have high school students successfully learn and utilize the EDP to identify and address open-ended problems. The EDP empowers students by providing them with a Hk Maker Lab Kyle Vol. 1, No. 1, January 2018 Journal of STEM Outreach 2 systematic framework for understanding and solving real-world problems. Hk Maker Lab challenges students to apply EDP principles to innovate solutions to problems of their identification. The Hk Maker Lab is meant to be a formative educational experience, encouraging students to continue pursuing opportunities in STEM fields, including undergraduate degrees and careers. The goal of this programmatic paper is to outline the structure of the Hk Maker Lab summer program for the purposes of dissemination and potential utilization of this model by those who strive to create engineering-centric programs. Additionally, program efficacy is demonstrated through preliminary assessment of our participants’ responses to attitudinal surveys of their knowledge of engineering and design, experiences in the program, and their plans to pursue STEM undergraduate majors. PROGRAM STRUCTURE The Hk Maker Lab is a six-week summer program in which high school students learn and apply the engineering design process. Participating students are required to complete a comprehensive application and in-person or video interviews to attain program admission. The program is held in classrooms and laboratories at Columbia University – Morningside Campus. Students, typically rising Juniors and Seniors, participate in the program for four days per week from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. The engineering design training is imparted through a combination of workshops, laboratory procedures, and prototyping work. Engineering design workshops. The Hk Maker Lab workshops are classroom sessions that are used to impart the EDP to participating students. These sessions are highly interactive, with topic lectures interspersed with in-class activities that allow students to practice the EDP. In-class practice sessions are regularly conducted to give students opportunities to apply novel design concepts as they are introduced. Additionally, students deliver weekly mini-presentations on the outcomes of their class efforts. These presentations are critiqued by their peers giving the entire class opportunities to share and refine their understanding of the EDP as they are learning it. The engineering design process is segmented into three phases: Problem Identification, Solution Conceptualization, and Solution Implementation and Testing (see Table 1 for the general sequence of Hk Maker Lab EDP instruction). Students are first introduced to methods that innovators use to identify unmet needs. They are charged with conducting extensive research on a biomedical problem such that they understand the underlying pathology, the key stakeholders related to the problem and why a solution presents value to them, and the reasons why existing solutions are insufficient. Once a problem is well-defined and vetted, they are encouraged to generate prospective solutions via unconstrained brainstorming. Students use their previous research into the problems and stakeholders to methodically determine which of their ideas are most appropriate. The students are then charged with devising proof of concept experiments to test the feasibility of their solutions. The experiments reference students’ prior knowledge of the scientific method; however, instead of simply presenting them with pre-fabricated experimental procedures, they are challenged to formulate their own experimental questions, hypotheses, and methodologies to test the appropriateness of their solutions. As a result of the experiments, they elect whether to proceed with protoEngineering Design Process Stages Week EDP Workshops Vital Signs Monitor Laboratory Procedures Identification Week 1 Problem Identification & Needs Finding Body Temperature Week 2 Design Research & Inputs Breathing Rate Conceptualization Week 3 Ideation: Brainstorming Heart Rate Muscle Activity Measurement Week 4 Proof of Concept Testing