Objective: Design-based STEAM program about cognitive engineering are developed for elementary and secondary school students. Background: Even though cognitive engineering is one of the most promising engineering areas, young students have little understanding on cognitive science or engineering in general. Method: To encourage young students to have interests on cognitive engineering, design-based STEAM program is developed based on flipped classroom-like model. Students engage in solving a given problem first and then hidden meaning (cognitive science) is hinted to them at the later stage. Results: Exemplary program, ‘international vehicle license plate design’ program is developed and applied to 10 different schools. Conclusion: The teachers and students who participate the program report that the program is interesting to conduct and helps them to understand cognitive engineering. Application: The proposed design-based STEAM program can be applied not only the cognitive engineering but also introducing other new engineering area to elementary or secondary students.