Pre-Engineering Track · Inaugural Summer 2028
Capstone agent · Build hardware AI.
I built an AI agent that suggests CAD revisions based on tolerance constraints.
What your child will build
An agentic system that takes an engineering drawing, reasons about tolerances and material specifications, suggests revisions for manufacturability, and produces a design-review memo a junior engineer can present to their team lead.
What it does
Co-Teaching Faculty
Working engineer · McCormick School of Engineering
Our pre-engineering track is co-taught by a practicing engineer — recruited from McCormick School of Engineering and the broader hardware and systems engineering ecosystem — alongside a senior software engineer. Your child works directly with an engineer who has shipped physical products and who can articulate the difference between a clever simulation and a manufacturable design. The mentor relationship continues past the program: pre-engineering students who perform well receive a personal letter of recommendation and direct introductions into the broader practitioner network.
“Students leave understanding the difference between a design that runs in CAD and a design that survives a manufacturing review.”
Curriculum Deep-Dive
The pre-engineering cohort splits off from the shared Week 1 foundations and works directly with the engineer on tolerance reasoning, manufacturability, and the design-review patterns unique to hardware AI.
Week 1 foundations are shared across all 5 tracksWeek 3 builds + admissions coaching
Sample student work
Sample capstone projects illustrating the scope of Pre-Engineering work. Inaugural cohort is Summer 2028 — these are not real-alumni outcomes.
Sample student work — Lucas T. (rising 12th)
Built an agent that reviews a multi-part 3D-printed assembly, propagates dimensional tolerances through the stack, and surfaces interferences before the print job runs.
Sample student work — Anika P. (rising 11th)
Built an agent that takes a part spec and proposes alternative materials with revised tolerances and cost implications, citing yield strength and machinability data.
Why this track wins for admissions
An admissions reader at a top pre-engineering university — MIT, Stanford, Caltech, Berkeley EECS, Carnegie Mellon, Northwestern McCormick — is looking for the rare applicant who has built something real and can talk about the engineering judgment behind it. Most strong pre-engineering applicants present FIRST Robotics seasons, science-fair projects, and AP Physics scores — all important, all common. Far fewer can sit across from an interviewer and discuss the design tradeoffs in tolerance stack-up automation, the limits of simulation, or what a manufacturing review actually evaluates. Your child finishes the program with a working CAD-revision agent at a personal URL, an architecture writeup an admissions reader can verify, and a Common App essay built around the project — a piece of writing that makes their interest in engineering specific, hands-on, and verifiably their own.
Talk through your child’s admissions strategy
Pre-Engineering FAQ
Pre-Engineering · Selective by design
Selective admissions. We expect a 40 to 60 percent admit rate. Rolling applications through Spring 2028.