Designed as a hands-on program, engineering at HMC promotes research as early as students' first year, when teams of students take on projects for nonprofit clients. Recent projects have included developing a squirt gun for children with disabilities and designing an efficient method for cutting tissue samples used in biological research.

Most of the engineering courses entail hands-on work, and many incorporate intensive lab experience. As students move through the program, which offers a number of research fellowships, most will come to work alongside their faculty members on significant research. A good number will even be named co-authors on published papers and present their research at conferences.