This textbook is the centerpiece for a project-based freshman course with the goals of promoting creativity, teamwork, and the engineering profession. This project-based approach has been successfully used to introduce future engineers to the engineering profession. It helps students to develop an understanding of ethical and professional responsibility, sharpen analytical, problem solving, design, and communication skills, learn how to think through, organize, and write scientific reports, and nurture cooperative learning by reinforcing the team approach to creative problem solving. The text includes eight team design projects, each designed to teach a set of basic engineering principles graded according to the score achieved with a specified objective function under a given set of specifications. Traditional mid-term and final examinations are replaced by team design proposal presentations and reports involving topics and specifications of the student's choosing. Analytic skill, scientific principle, design heuristics and report writing essentials are included in this essential introduction to the engineering field.