This paper serves to give brief overviews of key issues in five case studies in engineering technology stand-alone project based courses within a standard scholastic framework. The courses were offered in a range of scenarios with significant international student participation. The subject material focused on optics, opto-electronics and electronics. Topics covered in this work include; issues with managing scope, issues with adapting to open ended problem solving, and, confusion between method based teaching and guided projects. The main purpose of this paper is to share findings on preparing and delivering project based courses that are developed within a pre-existing system of courses and with a pre-existing limit of facilities.