Implementation of Multidisciplinary Senior Design Projects within Single-discipline Course Section Framework

Michael V Potter; Lorna Cintron-Gonzalez

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Conference: 2025 ASEE Southeast Conference
Location: Mississippi State University, Mississippi
Publication Date: March 9, 2025
Start Date: March 9, 2025
End Date: March 11, 2025
Conference Session: Professional Papers
Tagged Topic: Professional Papers
Page Count: 12
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--54176
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/54176
Download Count: 16

Paper Authors

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Michael V Potter Francis Marion University

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Dr. Michael Potter is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Coordinator of Mechanical Engineering at Francis Marion University (FMU). He teaches both upper and lower-level courses in FMU’s mechanical engineering program. Dr. Potter received bachelor’s degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Physics from Ohio Northern University. He then went on to attend the University of Michigan, where he received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering. His research uses body-worn sensor networks to better quantify and understand human performance in many biomechanical contexts, outside of traditional laboratory environments.

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biography

Lorna Cintron-Gonzalez Francis Marion University

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Dr. Cintron-Gonzalez is an Associate Professor of Industrial Engineering at Francis Marion University in Florence, SC. Dr. Cintron-Gonzalez earned a BS degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez in 2005, a MS degree in Health Systems from Georgia Tech in 2006, and a PhD in Industrial Engineering from Penn State University in 2013. Her research interests include engineering education, workplace human factors and ergonomics, health systems optimization, discrete-event simulation, and lean manufacturing. Dr. Cintron-Gonzalez has several publications in these fields and is committed to advancing knowledge especially in engineering education and workplace ergonomics.

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Abstract

A small primarily undergraduate university is home to two engineering programs. As part of the curriculum, each program requires an engineering senior design course in their respective disciplines, which is typically sponsored by a local industry partner. Traditionally, the courses for each discipline have been taught separately with each senior design project being discipline specific. For Spring 2024, the instructors of the two senior design courses solicited, for the first time, multidisciplinary senior design projects where some teams would be composed of students from both disciplines. Four teams were assigned discipline-specific projects and two teams were assigned multidisciplinary projects. Team members in multidisciplinary teams were enrolled in their individual discipline’s course. Each discipline’s course was offered separately, yet at the same time. This facilitated class meetings that could be discipline specific or combined depending on the needs of those lectures. The instructors coordinated curriculum schedules so that students learned discipline-independent topics synchronously with other meetings dedicated to discipline-dependent topics. Team project proposals and updates were generally attended by all enrolled students from both courses, exposing the students to the discipline-specific projects for both disciplines and the multidisciplinary projects. This also allowed all teams (including discipline-specific) to receive peer feedback from students in both programs. It was anticipated that such peer exposure and feedback would improve the overall quality of all projects. This paper outlines the course structure for these connected senior design courses including major milestones, deliverables, and grading procedures. Instructors coordinated rubrics for primary deliverables. To evaluate the effectiveness of this senior design structure, IRB-approved surveys were administered asking for overall agreement with certain statements (Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree) and open-ended questions. For analysis, Likert scale responses were coded from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree) to facilitate quantitative comparisons. During an end-of-semester poster session, attendees were invited to fill out a brief survey to rate each senior design project they interacted with (N=62). These ratings were compared between discipline-specific and multidisciplinary projects. Additionally, students were invited to fill out a survey to measure the student’s perceptions of the benefits of this course structure and the multidisciplinary projects (N=8). For the poster session survey, mean ratings for single-discipline and multidisciplinary projects were each 4.7/5. Student survey results indicated that students felt the overall senior design experience was positive (Mean = 4.4). Additionally, they felt that seeing projects across both disciplines throughout the semester improved their engineering learning (Mean = 4.3) and improved their own team’s project (Mean = 3.8). These results suggest that the intended objectives of this course structure were largely achieved within this initial pool of students.

Citation
Format

Potter, M. V., & Cintron-Gonzalez, L. (2025, March), Implementation of Multidisciplinary Senior Design Projects within Single-discipline Course Section Framework Paper presented at 2025 ASEE Southeast Conference , Mississippi State University, Mississippi. 10.18260/1-2--54176

TY - CPAPER
AB - A small primarily undergraduate university is home to two engineering programs. As part of the curriculum, each program requires an engineering senior design course in their respective disciplines, which is typically sponsored by a local industry partner. Traditionally, the courses for each discipline have been taught separately with each senior design project being discipline specific. For Spring 2024, the instructors of the two senior design courses solicited, for the first time, multidisciplinary senior design projects where some teams would be composed of students from both disciplines. Four teams were assigned discipline-specific projects and two teams were assigned multidisciplinary projects. Team members in multidisciplinary teams were enrolled in their individual discipline’s course. Each discipline’s course was offered separately, yet at the same time. This facilitated class meetings that could be discipline specific or combined depending on the needs of those lectures. The instructors coordinated curriculum schedules so that students learned discipline-independent topics synchronously with other meetings dedicated to discipline-dependent topics. Team project proposals and updates were generally attended by all enrolled students from both courses, exposing the students to the discipline-specific projects for both disciplines and the multidisciplinary projects. This also allowed all teams (including discipline-specific) to receive peer feedback from students in both programs. It was anticipated that such peer exposure and feedback would improve the overall quality of all projects. This paper outlines the course structure for these connected senior design courses including major milestones, deliverables, and grading procedures. Instructors coordinated rubrics for primary deliverables. To evaluate the effectiveness of this senior design structure, IRB-approved surveys were administered asking for overall agreement with certain statements (Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree) and open-ended questions. For analysis, Likert scale responses were coded from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree) to facilitate quantitative comparisons. During an end-of-semester poster session, attendees were invited to fill out a brief survey to rate each senior design project they interacted with (N=62). These ratings were compared between discipline-specific and multidisciplinary projects. Additionally, students were invited to fill out a survey to measure the student’s perceptions of the benefits of this course structure and the multidisciplinary projects (N=8). For the poster session survey, mean ratings for single-discipline and multidisciplinary projects were each 4.7/5. Student survey results indicated that students felt the overall senior design experience was positive (Mean = 4.4). Additionally, they felt that seeing projects across both disciplines throughout the semester improved their engineering learning (Mean = 4.3) and improved their own team’s project (Mean = 3.8). These results suggest that the intended objectives of this course structure were largely achieved within this initial pool of students.
AU - Michael V Potter
AU - Lorna Cintron-Gonzalez
CY - Mississippi State University, Mississippi
DA - 2025/03/09
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Implementation of Multidisciplinary Senior Design Projects within Single-discipline Course Section Framework
UR - https://peer.asee.org/54176
DO - 10.18260/1-2--54176
ER -