with relativelysimple experiences in the first semester and leading up to a significant entrepreneurialcomponent as part of the capstone design project. In between those extremes, students will learnmore about entrepreneurship and complete entrepreneurial design projects in a sophomore-levelcourse on Advanced Digital Logic Design and in a junior-level course in EmbeddedMicrocontrollers. These two courses were chosen because of their heavy design content andtheir emphasis on a final design project. By trimming less than 10% of the material in these twocourses, we were able to add a few lessons on entrepreneurship that then allowed students toselect and complete an entrepreneurial design project in each of the courses.Illustrating the importance
. Page 14.796.6Figure 4. Array of Project Content Categories Figure 5. Dispersal of Project Content Focus in Selected ME310 Projects (1979, 1999, 2006)Map to Current ME310 Course Content FocusMechanical Engineering 310 is a master’s level course at Stanford University in mechanicalengineering and design. Students are set up in teams and spend the school year, over threequarters, attacking a problem supplied by industry, having the freedom of time, money ($15K)and plenty of self-efficacy. Many students have had design classes their senior year but ME310serves as a Capstone Plus course wherein rather than learning through a problem-based learningenvironment, the students are in a product
course, also described later, thateveryone takes. Therefore, all students, whether freshman or transfer, take the samecourses.MethodologyAn important aspect of this learn-by-doing approach is design. We incorporate designinto most of our engineering courses, from freshman to senior capstone classes and evensome of our graduate classes. Design opportunities are also provided through extra-curricular activities. These activities include human-powered vehicles, hybrid cars,formula cars, super-mileage cars (our latest achieved close to 2000 miles per gallon),solar car, HVAC projects, a sustainable-house project, robotic projects, chainless bicycleproject, and many more. All of these devices are designed and built by students in ourmachine shops on
Harvesting Control PanelAbstractReducing high energy consumption and costs is imperative and significant to our daily life. Inthis paper, we describe a capstone senior design project that develops an efficient energy-savingsolution. The solution is called the GreenLite system and consists of two components: a self-adjustable solar tracker panel and a light harvesting control panel.The solar tracker panel tends to maximize the absorption of solar power. Specifically, the solartracker panel can adjust itself automatically to the direction where the panel is directly facing theSun. To achieve this, the component employs photo-sensors to measure the irradiance of the Sunand to provide the feedback signal on the current position of the panel. The
AC 2009-2467: AN EXPERIMENTAL SET UP FOR OPTIMAL DESIGN OF AHUMAN-POWERED HYDRAULIC BICYCLEAlamgir Choudhury, Western Michigan UniversityPavel Ikonomov, Western Michigan UniversityJorge Rodriguez, Western Michigan University Page 14.193.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2009 Experimental Setup for Optimal Design of a Human-Powered Hydraulic BicycleAbstractProduct development competitions through capstone design courses pose both, opportunities andchallenges for graduating seniors in engineering and engineering technology programs. Facultiesof relevant programs recognize the value of industry-sponsored projects for involvement
from the discipline of interest ≠ Elective courses that provide depth or interdisciplinary focus depending on student educational objectives ≠ Capstone project demonstrates applications of skills and synthesis of knowledgeCore CurriculumThe core curriculum is required of all MEng students, regardless of which track they pursue.The core provides skills in the effective practice of engineering recognizing that for experiencedpractitioners, effectiveness includes technical skills, project and task management skills, andinterpersonal skills. Students are required to take 2 courses from the Project / Task Management Page 14.863.5set
might be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the overalldesign artifact in meeting its design specifications and purpose.1.0 IntroductionIn this paper we provide an initial descriptive study of how different teams of bioengineering“inventors” navigate the design process from idea conception to prototype. Nine bioengineeringcapstone teams from the Swanson School of Engineering Department of Bioengineering and 27teams from throughout the U.S. who entered the BME-Idea national competition each reflectedupon and diagramed their experiences via process maps that captured their engineering designand product development activities. Although many of the BME-Idea projects also resulted frombioengineering capstone projects, several others were either
their design project as a daily exercise in paperwork rather than a year-long experience of learning and implementing a technical design process. 2. The conclusion of the first semester of design can be unsatisfying Like many other institutions, our senior design is a two-semester sequence where the first semester concludes with a written design proposal and the second semester culminates in a functional deliverable. As such, teams are typically far from a final deliverable at the conclusion of the first semester. For students who are accustomed to finishing a course project at the end of the semester and experiencing a strong sense of completion, the first semester of the capstone leaves many students
characterization lab toa new instructor in spring 2008. The communications instructor remained the same in bothinstances.In this paper, a comparison will be made between the course as it existed before and after thecurriculum change.ObjectivesThe primary objective of this course restructure is to broaden the materials processing experienceof materials science and engineering students at Virginia Tech and to better prepare them todesign their senior capstone projects. This paper will outline changes made to the processingcourse and the motivations behind those changes. A detailed discussion of the course structureand assignments will illustrate fundamental differences in the approach as of fall 2008.Approach and MethodologyIn the original physical ceramics
in this material are those of the authorsand do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. Page 14.564.7References1. Dutson, A., Todd, R., Magleby, S. & Sorensen, C. (1997). A Review of Literature on Teaching Engineering Design Through Project-Oriented Capstone Courses. J. Eng. Ed., 86, 17-28.2. Koretsky, M.D., D. Amatore, C. Barnes, and S. Kimura, (2008). Enhancement of Student Learning in Experimental Design using a Virtual Laboratory," IEEE Trans. Ed., Special Issue on Virtual Laboratories, 51, 76.3. Koretsky, Milo D., Sho Kimura, Connelly Barnes Derek-Meyers Graham, and Danielle Amatore
the students was thelead systems engineer for the in-house satellite build project, called Texas2Step, sponsored bythe Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). An added bonus to the pilot class was theparticipation of the capstone design professor, as well as a graduate teaching assistant with aMaster’s degree in aerospace engineering from Georgia Tech with an emphasis on SystemDesign and Optimization. The participation of all these many perspectives provided continuousimprovement on the course content and delivery. {Note that current offerings of the SE Courseare available to all students in the space track of the aerospace engineering degree program.}The SE Course content is based on numerous systems engineering handbooks and primers fromNASA1
. Spretnak, C. M. (1982). A Survey of the Frequency and Importance of Technical Communication in an Engineering Career. In The Technical Writing Teacher (pp. 133-136).3. Wheeler, E., & McDonald, R. L. (2000, Oct). Writing in Engineering Courses. Journal of Engineering Education .4. Sharp, Julie E. "Selecting and presenting Writing Assignments in Engineering Classes: Tips for New Professors." Frontiers in Education Conference. IEEE, 1995. Session 4b5.5. Kampf, Constance, Stephan Heinz, and Joseph Labuz. "The Rhetoric of the Capstone Project: Workign Towards and Explicit Definition of the Capstone Project Writing Process." IEEE International Professional Communication Conference. 2004. 89-96.6. Pappas, Eric C. "Holistic Grading in
and PractitionersAbstract This paper presents an analysis result of collaborative studio course that engagesstudents, faculty and practitioners. The collaborative studio is one of the two sequential capstonecourses. As the capstone studio experience of students’ academic design career, these twocapstone courses encourage students’ initiative and independence in design. Students arerequired to choose a practitioner as a reviewer for their projects. Reviewers are expected to cometo the design presentation critique at least twice during the semester. Throughout the semester,students are expected to share their information and views and to engage peers and visitingprofessionals in meaningful dialogue. The
capstone courses.The manufacturing processes presented include wood working, machining, welding andcomposite lay-up. In addition, software tools are introduced and compared including MicrosoftExcel®, MatLAB®, MathCAD®, and Inventor®. Key aspects of technical communicationincluding reading, writing and presenting are introduced and practiced. Finally, a two-lessonseminar on engineering ethics completes the content. A small desk set is constructed by thestudents as a capstone project, and draws on many of the skills learned throughout the course.To evaluate the course, students were surveyed frequently and faculty feedback was collected.The results presented show that the welding, machining and Excel® content was very successful,while general
peripherals and a complexprocessor appear to serve the immediate needs of the introductory microprocessor course.Students who chose to use a microcontroller in a future project were forced to design circuitboards requiring fabrication and assembly at outside vendors at considerable cost; this tended todiscourage their use in our capstone projects course. We discuss our current introductory coursethat uses a MC9S08QG8/4 microcontroller from Freescale. It comes in a sixteen pin DIPpackage, has an internal clock and can be programmed using the same Codewarrior softwareIDE Freescale uses for all of its microcontrollers and can be programmed through aUSBSPYDER08∀interface. We developed a set of four simple input/output boards so studentscan exercise
Finance 20% 0% Figure 7: Finance and Economic Topics CoverageCapstone and Elective Courses: Capstone and elective courses also play an important role inEM curricula. ASEM certification requires a capstone project or thesis and 69% of the programsinclude one or the other in their curricula. This number does not distinguish between requiredand optional capstone courses. Typical requirements list a thesis as optional for which a project,or sometimes a series of classes, is an acceptable substitute; however, projects are rarely optionalin programs without a thesis option. The breakdown of coverage for capstone offerings isdisplayed in Figure 8. Included in this figure are seminars and comprehensive
entrepreneurship.1,2,3 In thissame spirit of “doing” versus “lecturing”, the Electronics and Telecommunications (EET/TET)Programs at Texas A&M University have been developing an emphasis in electronics productdesign. To this end, the curriculum has been augmented to include topics such as electronicsmanufacturing, system integration, innovation, project management, and entrepreneurship. Aninitiative to team engineering technology students with business students who understandmarketing and small business plan development has also gained substantial momentum over thepast three years.4 Finally, all students are required to participate in a capstone design sequencewhere they work in teams to develop the concept for a product and implement a fully
(Proposal) Donn the design and development of a Clark, product which would be Senait considered an "Assistive Haileselas Technology" device. Students sie work with a specific client and identify Capstone Assistive Technology project to be accomplished in 16.499.S 16.399 S 3 Capstone Proposal Donn Business plan to fund the design & 17
University is surrounded by several autosuppliers and furniture manufacturers. Over the years, our engineering school has developed astrong partnership with the local industry. Co-op is mandatory in our undergraduate program andwe provide well trained co-op students to the industry. All of our capstone projects are sponsoredby the local industry. It is therefore imperative that we strive to keep our curricula up to date, sothat they reflect local industry’s needs and our students remain competent in the fast changingenvironment of technology and businesses. Our engineering program emphasizes teaching andapplied research. Therefore, our faculty is continuously engaged in pedagogical research and itsimplementation and it is active in disseminating the
Development Program (IDP), post B.Arch. The IDP carefully monitorscompetence in basic comprehension of a wide range of practical architectural experiences priorto allowing the junior architect to sit for the licensing exam. Page 14.1126.8ConclusionsWe close by advocating that in upper level interdisciplinary or in capstone projects, that facultyencourage students to explore both ends of the taxonomy. A practical way of ensuring this is tocontinually nurture in the students a sense of appreciation of the context of their work, bothhistorical and contemporary/global, along with guidance in the techniques necessary to achievethese ends. A pedagogically
flexibility in designing their curriculum. This has allowed for theproposed BMET option to be easily accommodated within the EET program. Page 14.454.3III. The EET-BMET Option Approach to Biomedical InstrumentationRecognizing that in order to provide a rounded education for our students, it was imperative thatthey be exposed to actual biomedical instruments used in the medical field, the curriculumincludes a capstone course that can be satisfied by completing either a capstone project in an area Table 1. ECET courses in the BSBMET degree program option. COURSE NAME SEMEST WEEKLY WEEKL
descriptionsof those parts or assemblies. The ability of increased knowledge of solid modeling has becomecrucial to the success of ECET students.The new Solid Modeling course exposes ECET students to creating 3D models, creating 2Ddrawings of components, and 3D assemblies.This paper will discuss the development of a solid modeling course for ECET students. It willinclude the following information: discussion on the need for the course (i.e. driving factors),course objectives, course content, and the student’s capstone project in the course and studentcomments about the course.Background and Desired Outcomes of the CourseThe development of the course started with meetings between the MET and ECET departmentrepresentatives (i.e. the authors of this paper
theprocesses that are used to integrate the teams, and provides specific examples of projects wherethese tools are utilized.IntroductionThe importance of significant design experiences to prepare undergraduate engineering studentsfor engineering careers has been well-documented1-4. These experiences typically emphasizethe application of technical skills as well as professional skills, such as communication in bothwritten and verbal form, working as a team, and customer interaction. The need for suchexperiences has spawned many innovative approaches to capstone senior design courses.However, capstone senior design courses do not include underclassmen. Earlier designexperiences have become more common and have shown to be valuable in motivating students
motivation and creative thinkingskills, especially when design is targeted toward realistic projects. In addition, the project focusearly on serves to better prepare students for their capstone design projects in their senior year.1To address the issues of a traditional engineering curriculum, the authors are part of a recentcurriculum redesign in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at DukeUniversity. This redesign is funded by the National Science Foundation and is centered upon thetheme of Integrated Sensing and Information Processing (ISIP).4 The redesigned curriculum hasfocused on real-world problems as a means for the successful training of modern engineers. Thetheme of ISIP has been implemented in the development of the first
, II, and III in Table 1.)They include a common core of 35 credits that provides a foundation in the liberal arts and anexploratory curriculum that includes 40 credits in the Arts and Humanities (10 credits), SocialSciences (10 credits), Natural Sciences (15 credits, including both biological science andphysical science courses) and Math (5 credits).General Engineering Core RequirementsThe general engineering core requirements are common to all concentrations and includemathematics, chemistry, physics, programming, probability and statistics, circuits, junior leveldesign, internship courses, and the senior design and capstone project. A listing of theserequirements is shown in Table 2 along with related learning outcomes from Table 1. Ten
AC 2009-2227: USE OF RESEARCH NOTEBOOKS BY UNDERGRADUATESTUDENTSStephen Ekwaro-Osire, Texas TechPeter Orono, Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis Page 14.1304.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2009 Use of Research Notebooks by Undergraduate StudentsAbstract Previously, the authors investigated the use of design notebooks as indicators of studentparticipation in team activities. The authors have used design notebooks in freshman designclasses and senior capstone design class. It was demonstrated that design notebooks are a goodindicator of teamwork practices. The motivation of this study is to enhance creativity in designresearch by
lessons learned andinnovative approaches in the new ABET accreditation process at VSU∀in this first visit arepresented.Capstone Senior Design Course:Capstone senior design experience is both a graduation requirement for undergraduateengineering majors and for ABET accreditation of these programs. A senior design course istypically the last bridge for students between undergraduate education and the engineeringprofession in their respective disciplines. The course differs from other lecture and laboratorybased courses in the engineering curriculum in fundamental ways. Many capstone senior designcourses include lectures to develop students’ knowledge of the product development process,project management, professional engineering practice, and the
AC 2009-2068: CORNERSTONE DESIGN: PRODUCT DISSECTION IN ACOMMON FIRST-YEAR ENGINEERING DESIGN AND GRAPHICS COURSEThomas Doyle, McMaster University Page 14.371.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2009Cornerstone Design – Product Dissection in a Common First Year Engineering Design and Graphics CourseAbstractIn the senior year of an engineering program many students will have the opportunity to enroll incourses that offer Capstone engineering design projects [1]. In many engineering students’educational career these are the most interesting and rewarding courses because they offer thestudent the ability to apply the culmination of their education to an
agency that provides energy and environmentalinformation and services, a mechanical engineering capstone design team has taken on thechallenge of designing and implementing a heating system for the worms. In keeping with thetheme of the worm composting, it was decided that this heating system must utilize renewableand sustainable energy sources. This paper will share the design process and the details of thefinal design implementation. The project was unique in that it involved considerable interactionamong the mechanical engineering students, the staff of the non-profit community agency, andthe staff and students of Woodcreek Elementary School. The paper will share the lessonslearned through such interactions and will provide some guidance to
century and beyond. From a university’s perspective the fundamental set of issues are: 1. Promote university-industry collaboration between its faculty (and students) and industry with projects funded by industry. 2. Do so in an environment of academic freedom, i.e. with as few constraints as possible on publishing, IP rights, technology transfer, etc. 3. Fit collaborations in the academic setting such as the calendar when faculty and students are available to work on projects or Capstone type projects which might be one or more semesters long. 4. The bottom line is that the projects must contribute to the educational mission of the university, rather than be seen as the university just