Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Dilpreet S. Bajwa; Sreekala G. Bajwa

ASEE-NMWSC2013-0058 Industry and Students Perception of Capstone ProjectsDilpreet S Bajwa, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Sreekala G Bajwa, Agriculturaland Biosystems Engineering, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND.Email – dilpreet.bajwa@ndsu.edu , sreekala.bajwa@ndsu.eduAbstractCapstone projects are designed to help students learn technical, communication and interpersonalskills that will ultimately provide them with a broad knowledge base required at the start of theirprofessional careers. Engineering capstone experience prepares students to work in a productivemanner in teams. It is expected that the students will learn problems solving

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Steven Buchhop; Tate Carlson; Evan Edwards; Prakash Ranganathan; Reza Fazel-Rezai

ASEE-NMWSC2013-0014 Household Energy Aware Real-Time System (HEARTS): A Capstone Project Design Steven Buchhop, Tate Carlson, Evan Edwards, Prakash Ranganathan, and Reza Fazel-Rezai University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND 58202 prakash.ranganathan@engr.und.eduAbstract— This paper discusses a design framework and student experiences of a capstone project carried by students at theDepartment of Electrical Engineering, University of North Dakota (UND). The goal of this capstone project was to provide a“Smart Home” that

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Francis Peloubet; Eakalak Khan; G. Padmanabhan

system until 1992. The capstone course was offered inthe first two years since its inception as a 2-quarter, 3-credit course in the senior year. In the firstquarter, students worked on preparing a proposal and presenting it. In the second quarter 167students carried out the design and presented their final product. Andersen1 reported the detailsand experience with this course two years after it was established. In this course, a designproject was carefully selected to encompass many of the areas within civil engineering as well asother socioeconomic issues. Definition of the project was purposely left as openǦended aspossible to encourage the students' imagination and ingenuity. Each faculty

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Scott G. Gabert; Jeff C. Kaiser; Derek J. Snyder; Prakash Ranganathan; Reza Fazel-Rezai

design, but only afterthe software controls have been verified with the Xbee sensors using the XCTU software and LabVIEW.The group also hopes to test different types of ZigBee operating modes, including star and mesh modes.As the project progresses, parts of the above proposal may be changed as necessary. EDUCATIONAL OUTCOMES This capstone project led to various educational outcomes and student gained the fundamentalknowledge that are required to conduct this project through several junior and senior courses. The list isgiven in the following table.Courses Concepts gained by students conduct the Senior Design ProjectEE 321 – Electronics I 321. Electronics I. 3 credits. Prerequisite

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Nannan He; Gale Allen; Cameron Johnson

of automation components including programmable logic controllers (PLC’s),actuators and robots, sensors, motors, drivers, and operator control displays. Students design,simulate, build, test and document automation systems for capstone projects to demonstrate theirunderstanding of the subjects. The initial version of the courses and lab was described in a paperin late fall 2006 1.Since then, several different types of laboratory equipment have been added the course syllabusand material has been continuously improved. Active learning and hands-on learning are thebasis for instruction in the courses. Several short projects have been added to the course. Teamsof two-to-three students develop and complete capstone projects. More details about

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Cory J. Prust; Stephen M. Williams

Engineering (EE) program at the MilwaukeeSchool of Engineering (MSOE), design is strongly integrated into many courses1. These projectsare generally short-term in the context of an eleven-week term, and involve individual or two- 211student teams. The projects lead to the major capstone design experience, Senior Design, whichis a three-term course sequence: EE-407/8/9. Each term consists of an eleven week term, so threeterms is one academic year. While all EE students are required to take this course sequence,interdisciplinary projects may be undertaken, and the teams can include other engineeringstudents: computer, mechanical, software, etc. Over the 26 years of the existence of this course,it has

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Charles McIntyre

number of engineering/design projects that canbe integrated into the structure of classroom activities,4 such as, Rube Goldberg Contraptions,Leonardo da Vinci: The Engineer, Lego Robots, Battle Bots, etc. Specifically, within theconstruction management discipline, few examples of first-year classroom applications areprovided in the literature. These hands-on application within construction education areprimarily focused on the senior capstone experience.10,12,13The basic purpose of this project is two-fold: first, to document current first-year constructionmanagement courses, and second, to develop and deliver a hands-on first-year “constructionmanagement experience” within the framework of CM&E 111

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

J. E. Johnson; L. Stradins; S Springer; R. Asthana

Engineering senior capstone group poses with automated welding apparatus,which was design and built by them in 2012. Engineering and Technology Department Open House,December 2012. 22Demonstrations of student-built apparatus included a photovoltaic tracker system, quality controlsystem for a hydrogen fuel cell, advanced process control for injection molding, brain computerinterface to control a radio-controlled car, sustainability education outreach: watersheds, CNCtube plasma cutter, food packaging for outer space, shaken baby simulator, multi-cylinder steamengine, master/slave robot, and many others. While not all of the listed projects were directlyfunded through the endowed chair program, a

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Nannan He; Han-Way Huang

enter the workplace.Third, they have well-documented tutorials and user manual, and even exercises. Theseresources are very helpful for the lecture notes preparation and assignments design. Fourth, thesetools include rich example projects from simple to complex scale. They are very usefulreferences for designing student projects. In order to advocate active learning, pre-labassignments are made in this course. Hands-on learning through class projects is highlyencouraged and will be the basis for instruction in this course. So far, students have developedand completed 3 capstone projects. Students can get long-time benefits from the efforts theymake in “playing with” these tools, especially in terms of improving their work efficiency.Three Input

Collection

2013 North Midwest Section Meeting

Authors

Bob Fourney; Jason Sternhagen; George Hamer; Cory Mettler

Sequence in Engineering Design) in the Electrical Engineeringprogram. The purpose of FOCUSED is to combat the above apparent difficulties in teachingelectrical engineering at the undergraduate level by providing an early, hands-on freshmanseminar giving the student an intuitive feel for the concepts of electrical engineering anddeveloping and emphasizing several common threads originating in that freshman class,continuing through the undergraduate core curriculum, and eventually connecting with aspects ofthe capstone senior design sequence.The first stage of the FOCUSED concept is the department-wide freshman experience, GE109Lwhich was first offered in the fall of 2010. The purpose is to both motivate EE and CS studentsto continue with their