To any college student looking for ways to get involved either in solving STEM problems/puzzles, or get involved in STEM inspiration; I would suggest simply contacting the dean of your college. If they can't offer you at least a half dozen suggestions, I'll owe you a Mountain Dew.
To any college student who feels that being challenged to solve a problem using a well-defined collection of parts is unworthy of being called an engineering challenge, I suggest:
a) Letting the world's chess players know that chess tournaments aren't real competitions/challenges, and
b) Telling the NASA folks who devised the CO2 scrubber changes that saved the Apollo 13 astronauts, that they weren't doing true engineering (I recommend staying out of arms reach when doing this
).
"a" and "b" above both involve fixed sets of equipment that must be either used better than an opponent uses them, and/or to overcome a challenge posed by the universe. If we don't quibble over the little stuff, I think both shine a useful light on what is or is not "a real engineering challenge".
College is a good time to learn to see with new eyes ...
Blake