A year ago the Introduction to Engineering course at Blessed Trinity began using a design challenge for the electrical engineering unit that involved designing the wiring circuit for a tiny home. As an extra credit opportunity, students were allowed to use online Computer Aided Design software to virtually build and furnish their tiny home. Students were so engaged in this activity that they began asking the question, “can we build our own tiny home?” While building an entire home is outside of the time constraints of a single class, this spurred discussion regarding how we might actually build a home and what benefit such a project could have to the school community.

Since both engineering teachers were also mentors for the school’s competition robotics team, they saw this project as an opportunity to not only provide an enriching opportunity for the students in the engineering courses, but also to serve as a key outreach project that would allow the robotics team students to apply their fabrication and project management skills to a unique service opportunity. With a group identified that could manage the project, the engineering teachers then set about obtaining plans, budgeting materials, training resources, and the other required approvals and materials. Through this process, the idea grew from including just the robotics team and students in the engineering class to making it a school-wide service and learning project. This movement to a larger, community project also came about because of the collective desire of Administration and Campus Ministry to improve the content and purpose of service opportunities to more of a school-wide culture of service where opportunities are integrated in all areas of school life from athletics and clubs to individual classrooms.