I would suggest that you get familiar with computers. Computer aided design is really big in the industry and it helps to have some background. This can mean anything from designing parts using autocad to simulating fluid flow, combustion, or detonation using Fluent. Learning a programming...
You can do some path finding stuff in Matlab. Take the classical mouse in a maze and expand upon it. I had some friends who transformed it into a firefighter rescue program. The purpose was to have a firefighter search through a burning building, 2-d, to save a terrified kid. There were varying...