I have a thought: you make a couple of cool projects, show them to your students. Then let them choose which one they want to do, then give them tasks to finish each part of their projects. If they don't see the end results, they don't have much motivations to work hard. Kids these days lack any type of imagination, probably ripped away from media overexposure of everything real or not. If I do a project, I imagine the outcome in my head and that keeps me working hard to get there.
Hint: Americans love cars. Do a project that you can use on a car like this one I did maybe:
Overnight it became featured and has received about 4K views.
FYI, I have not driven blind-folded yet. I need my own garage to do that.