Quarantined at home because of COVID19 - how can I do engineering research productively? I started grad school last September, and so far have been primarily busy with courses, but have been trying to do a little research on the side whenever I can. I recently finished all my courses though, and now I'm expected to dive into research.

My advisor hasn't assigned me a project and expects me to come up with one on my own. I don't mind this really, I like the freedom to work on whatever I want. However, this was only really feasible when I was in my lab and surrounded by senior PhD students with whom I could bounce ideas off and get a lot of guidance from. 

However, now I'm stuck at home because of the COVID19 lockdown and don't really know how to productively spend my time doing research. My advisor is busy taking care of his family at home because of the lockdown, so he isn't very responsive right now understandably. I'm all alone at home so I don't have the guidance of senior PhD students either. I've tried messaging senior PhD students but it's not fair for me to constantly be harassing them for help...

Apart from heavily guided stuff in undergrad, I have next to no real research experience... Since I assume I'll be stuck at home for the next several months, how can I be productive research wise with basically no guidance or help from anyone? I don't want to just waste the next few months...

FYI, I'm doing research in engineering but everything is done using simulations, so while I have all the tools and equipment I need to do research at home, I just don't have the experience or guidance to efficiently do so.

I've been trying to just read papers in the meantime, but I can only read so many before I get sick of it. I don't want to just be reading papers for 40 hours a week for the next 3 months...
You can try to fill the gaps in your knowledge and skills. For example, learn some techniques that are commonly used in your field. Even if you will not need them for your immediate project, there is a chance that they will be useful for the next one. For example, if you do engineering, you are likely to need to write some code, so you can improve your software engineering skills. Your colleagues may give you some more ideas on what is useful to learn.

If you feel sick of reading papers alone, you might try to reach to other junior students and form a virtual study group where you discuss and critically analyze recently published papers. You may actually come up with some ideas for research project based on the discussions. Good luck!