Students will enter the project through a community-connected launch that frames data center cooling as an authentic engineering problem, gathers first-round evidence from a site visit, and establishes the technical vocabulary, criteria, constraints, and project expectations that will guide the next phase.

Students will analyze evidence from the data center visit and technical sources, define a measurable cooling problem with stakeholder-centered criteria and constraints, compare existing cooling approaches, and produce a revised engineering design brief that guides later testing and concept development.

Students will present their tested data center cooling recommendation to community partners, defend design choices with evidence from research and performance data, respond to stakeholder questions about practicality and reliability, and complete a final professional communication task that captures next-step revisions.