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This study explores how the integration of making activities into cornerstone engineering design courses affects students' design skills. A quasi-experimental design was used in the study, where 29 engineering students were interviewed and observed during their participation in a fourth-year mechanical engineering capstone design course. Students were interviewed in a team-based environment from weeks 2 to 11 in the fall term of the 2018-2019 academic year. Interviews ranged between 15 and 45 minutes per team every week. The study aimed to understand differences in the engineering design learning experience of two distinct groups of students based on the type of introductory engineering design courses students had taken in their first and second year of study. Students who had already attended design courses that had included making activities were found to have more confidence in their design skills, hold their work to higher standards, experience less stress throughout the course and perform better than their peers in the conceptual design phase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]