Engineering and Engineering Technology Capstone Design Teams Lead to Successful Projects

Kiana Karami; Xinwei Niu; Rafic Bachnak

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Conference: 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Baltimore , Maryland
Publication Date: June 25, 2023
Start Date: June 25, 2023
End Date: June 28, 2023
Conference Session: Multidisciplinary Engineering Division (MULTI) Technical Session 5
Tagged Division: Multidisciplinary Engineering Division (MULTI)
Page Count: 12
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--43322
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/43322
Download Count: 158

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Paper Authors

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Kiana Karami Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg

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Kiana Karami is an assistant professor of Electrical Engineering, in the School of Science, Engineering, and Technology, at Penn State Harrisburg University. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Calgary in Electrical Engineering in 2020 and her BS and MS in Electrical Engineering from Shiraz University and University of Colorado Colorado Springs in 2011 and 2013 respectively. Her main area of interest is control systems, system identification and optimization.

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Xinwei Niu Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg

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I am an assistant professor in the Electrical Engineering department at Penn State Harrisburg. My research interests are in the areas of database systems, high performance computing, hardware acceleration, and embedded system design. I got my PhD at Florida International University, MS at Northwestern Polytechnical University, and BS at Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology.

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Rafic Bachnak Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg

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Rafic Bachnak is Professor of Electrical Engineering at Pennsylvania State University-Harrisburg. Previously, Dr. Bachnak was on the faculty of Texas A&M International University, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Northwestern State University, and Franklin University. Dr. Bachnak received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Ohio University. His experience includes several fellowships with NASA and the US Navy Laboratories and employment with Koch Industries. Dr. Bachnak is a registered Professional Engineer in the State of Texas, a senior member of IEEE and ISA, and a member of ASEE.

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Abstract

The capstone design course is an essential milestone of engineering education and has been used to help fulfill ABET Criteria for Accreditation. Engineering and technology programs have used the capstone course for various purposes, including equipping students with project management skills, assisting students with a teamwork spirit, addressing real-world problems, and as an assessment tool to meet professional accreditation requirements. Although the process for implementing capstone projects varies between programs, such projects normally take two semesters to complete and, in most cases, students are organized in teams of two or more. Both the electrical engineering and electrical engineering technology programs at Penn State Harrisburg have two-course sequences that constitute the capstone design experience. In the first course, student teams learn about the formal engineering design process and project management. This training process includes but is not limited to topic selection, background research, engineering and customer requirements generation, etc. Then, a detailed proposal is developed to be implemented in the following semester. The capstone sequence is structured to cover several critical non-technical issues, like incorporating engineering standards and including realistic constraints such as economic, environmental, manufacturability, and safety. The final report is a major outcome of the course and is expected to fully describe the project initiation, development, analysis, design, and verification phases. Other expectations include: Each team maintains a laboratory notebook that documents the day-to-day activities of the project, attends review meetings with the instructor and their technical advisor throughout the semester and submits a draft copy of the final report. Over the years, students from both electrical engineering and electrical engineering technology have worked in teams to complete their capstone projects. While electrical engineering students may have a strong theoretical background, electrical engineering technology students have strong hands-on experience, an important skill for building and troubleshooting electronic systems. Thus, the collaboration of electrical engineering and electrical engineering technology students can usually deliver projects efficiently and effectively. Another aspect that is worth mentioning here is that some of the projects are industry-sponsored and require multi-disciplinary teams that involve students from other disciplines, such as mechanical engineering or computer science. The paper will provide details about our approach in coordinating the activities in the two-course capstone design sequence, share information about the supervision and evaluation of student teams, evaluation results based on feedback from faculty advisors, and student self-assessment and feedback through an “after-action-review” form that students complete at the end of the semester.

Citation
Format

Karami, K., & Niu, X., & Bachnak, R. (2023, June), Engineering and Engineering Technology Capstone Design Teams Lead to Successful Projects Paper presented at 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Baltimore , Maryland. 10.18260/1-2--43322

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - The capstone design course is an essential milestone of engineering education and has been used to help fulfill ABET Criteria for Accreditation. Engineering and technology programs have used the capstone course for various purposes, including equipping students with project management skills, assisting students with a teamwork spirit, addressing real-world problems, and as an assessment tool to meet professional accreditation requirements. Although the process for implementing capstone projects varies between programs, such projects normally take two semesters to complete and, in most cases, students are organized in teams of two or more.  
Both the electrical engineering and electrical engineering technology programs at Penn State Harrisburg have two-course sequences that constitute the capstone design experience. In the first course, student teams learn about the formal engineering design process and project management. This training process includes but is not limited to topic selection, background research, engineering and customer requirements generation, etc. Then, a detailed proposal is developed to be implemented in the following semester. The capstone sequence is structured to cover several critical non-technical issues, like incorporating engineering standards and including realistic constraints such as economic, environmental, manufacturability, and safety. The final report is a major outcome of the course and is expected to fully describe the project initiation, development, analysis, design, and verification phases. Other expectations include: Each team maintains a laboratory notebook that documents the day-to-day activities of the project, attends review meetings with the instructor and their technical advisor throughout the semester and submits a draft copy of the final report. 
Over the years, students from both electrical engineering and electrical engineering technology have worked in teams to complete their capstone projects. While electrical engineering students may have a strong theoretical background, electrical engineering technology students have strong hands-on experience, an important skill for building and troubleshooting electronic systems. Thus, the collaboration of electrical engineering and electrical engineering technology students can usually deliver projects efficiently and effectively. Another aspect that is worth mentioning here is that some of the projects are industry-sponsored and require multi-disciplinary teams that involve students from other disciplines, such as mechanical engineering or computer science.  
The paper will provide details about our approach in coordinating the activities in the two-course capstone design sequence, share information about the supervision and evaluation of student teams, evaluation results based on feedback from faculty advisors, and student self-assessment and feedback through an “after-action-review” form that students complete at the end of the semester. 
AU  - Kiana Karami
AU  - Xinwei Niu
AU  - Rafic Bachnak
CY  - Baltimore , Maryland
DA  - 2023/06/25
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Engineering and Engineering Technology Capstone Design Teams Lead to Successful Projects 
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/43322
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--43322
ER  -