• Apply the logic of auction theory to a realistic procurement setting that does not map cleanly onto either textbook model—private value or common value—but instead combines features of both. • Build students’ ability to manage analytical complexity, distilling a large body of historical project data into a usable cost estimate and a defensible bid, so that students are comfortable with the messy, data-rich situations they will actually encounter and don’t freeze when an exam-style clean dataset is unavailable. • Demonstrate the value of drawing on tools from outside auction theory—notably, regression analysis, Monte Carlo simulation, and the concept of a Nash equilibrium—to structure and solve a practical bidding problem, so that students treat the analytical tool kit as portable across problems rather than locked to the technique in whose chapter the problem appeared. • Surface the winner’s curse as the central hazard of common-value auctions and develop intuition for how a disciplined markup strategy mitigates it, so that students recognize the curse in any sealed-bid environment they enter as managers and have a calibrated reflex for the defensive move that the situation demands.