design and presentation of a critical design review (CDR) to facultymentors near the end of the semester. In the spring semester, students accomplished peerevaluations at project status reviews (PSRs) after four and eight weeks, and at the end of thesemester with coincident with the system verification review (SVR). Figure 1 shows the averageof team standard deviations for each review for the ‟08, ‟09 and ‟10 capstone classes. The resultsof the first evaluations (SRR) were typical. Students were still learning each other‟s first namesand we reluctant to insult anyone. Most of the ratings reflected little, if any, variance in studentcontributions. The second round of ratings did not produce substantial changes. Consistent withpast results, we
semester of 2008, the program is the fourth largest discipline at theinstitution in terms of freshman enrollment. At the core of the curriculum are four signaturecourses called Unified Robotics I-IV. The educational objective of these courses is to introducestudents to the multidisciplinary theory and practice of robotics engineering, integrating thefields of computer science, electrical engineering and mechanical engineering. In addition totaking these and other courses, it is a requirement that all WPI undergraduates, regardless ofdiscipline, complete a senior-level project in their major field of study called Major QualifyingProject (MQP). This paper discusses the capstone design experience within the context of ournew RBE degree program
AC 2010-1370: LEARNING FROM RENEWABLE ENERGY RELATEDCAPSTONE PROJECTSYuyi Lin, University of Missouri Page 15.835.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2010 Learning from Energy Conversion Related Capstone ProjectsAbstractStudents’ capstone-design projects are more and more focused on renewable energy generationand conversion due to ever-increasing energy consumption and a concern for environmentalprotection. The initial challenge arises from the first step in any design process -- how to justifyworking on energy-related topics given severe constraints on time and other resources in atypical capstone project. Since many topics and problems related to renewable energy
AC 2010-1593: A MULTI-FACETED CAPSTONE DESIGN PROJECT IN HVACCharles Forsberg, Hofstra University Page 15.57.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2010 A Multi-Faceted Capstone Design Project in HVACThe Beginnings 1In 2000 I was contacted by a former student working for an engineering firm in theHVAC field. He wanted to discuss a system that he had designed for cooling of aglycol/water solution used in a heating and cooling system for a commercial building.The situation was as follows:A two-pipe heating and cooling system for a building has a central loop circulating eitherhot or chilled water. The central loop
AC 2010-921: CAPSTONE SENIOR PROJECT MENTORING AND STUDENTCREATIVITYWael Mokhtar, Grand Valley State University Page 15.259.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2010 Capstone Senior Project Mentoring and Student CreativityAbstractAfter the 2000 ABET accreditation changes, many Engineering Schools expanded or startedcapstone senior projects to meet the realization aspect of the engineering education. It is offeredin several versions including one and two-semester course. The capstone project offers anintegrated experience for the senior students to apply their engineering knowledge to solve aresearch or applied open-ended problem. The typical project includes
AC 2010-1576: CURRICULUM-WIDE PROJECT BASED LEARNING BYREFINING CAPSTONE PROJECTSBarry Hyman, University of Missouri Barry Hyman is Visiting Professor in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Dept. at the University of Missouri. His over 80 publications include many conference papers and journal articles on structural mechanics, engineering and public policy, energy systems and policy, and engineering design education. The second edition of his widely used textbook, Fundamentals of Engineering Design, was published by Prentice-Hall in 2003. He received the ASEE Centennial Medallion for significant and lasting contributions to engineering education (1993), and the ASEE Chester F
to test the abilities students have gainedover their college careers and to provide a design experience that simulates real-worldengineering. An important factor in giving students a valuable Capstone Design experience isthe selection of an appropriate project. A good project for this purpose should have appropriatetechnical rigor and allow students to focus as much as possible on engineering design rather thanon logistical activities like fundraising. Further, the work done by students in the course shouldbe assessable, both for the purposes of accreditation and for assignment of grades. Additionally,the deadlines imposed must be appropriate, and evaluation criteria need to be established.One solution for many of the project planning
project was measured by post-coursequestionnaires, course evaluations and student interviews conducted by the department chairbefore graduation. All students expressed positive learning experiences after participating in thisinterdisciplinary project and indicated that the learning outcomes were successfully achieved. I. IntroductionWith engineering students facing increasing distractions, it has become more and morechallenging to design and create attractive means to recruit and retain them. This paper reports aninterdisciplinary collaborative capstone senior design project for electrical and mechanicalengineering students to bring real-time videos from a High Altitude Balloon (HAB) to a groundstation. The HAB project has proved to be a unique
beengreatly reduced so that it is feasible for the two companies to sponsor HIL systems for all of theschools.Recommendations and SuggestionsThe use of HIL can be very useful in research situations that require vehicle control. It isrecommended that universities that are doing either vehicle system research or vehiclecomponent control research (engines, motors, fuel cells, etc) explore the usage of HIL in theirlabs. Developing an HIL simulator is a great research project in itself and will enable manyfuture projects in a much shorter timeframe yielding significant results in laboratoryexperiments. Page 15.767.10Bibliography1. Hanselmann, Herbert
PolytechnicInstitute determined that, while the vast majority of capstone design projects satisfied ourrequirements for Capstone Design, there were several disturbing trends. Specifically, it was noticed that students were lacking the skills to perform serious designsynthesis; they were not adequately addressing issues of quality, safety, reliability andmaintainability; little attention was being paid to issues associated with economics; students werehaving difficulty understanding how different areas of Electrical Engineering related to eachother; and significant amounts of faculty time were spent teaching project teams the designprocess. To correct these problems, a course was developed which focused on teaching students,during their second
, particularly capstone courses, that has received little attention is how to characterize andchoose suitable design projects.To better understand what aspects of design projects lead to successful capstone designexperiences for students, six years of evaluation data on electrical engineering capstone designprojects at a large, public research university were reviewed. Additionally, transcripts from fouryears of a capstone design course end-of-semester “after action review” by faculty, students, andteaching assistants were reviewed. From this work several characteristics of “successful”capstone projects emerged. While a definition of success is, of course, highly dependent onprogram specific outcomes, for this study success was defined as a project that
computational,mathematical, and scientific requirements of the course. The Senior Project is a capstone projectwhere students integrate their scientific as well as their software design and implementationknowledge to a real-world problem. As our institution is a minority serving one, we have strivedto attract female students to the science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) fieldsthrough different means including active recruitment, mentorship programs, scholarships, andinternships, just to name few. Our latest effort, reported in this paper, is to allow female studentsto select an area of great impact on their health and/or social well-being, and to investigate it indepth through their senior projects. The approach is called Collaborative
AC 2010-476: IMPLEMENTATION OF A COMPLEX MULTIDISCIPLINARYCAPSTONE PROJECT FOR STIMULATING UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTDEVELOPMENTRobert Rabb, United States Military AcademyJoseph Hitt, USMARobert Floersheim, US Military Academy Page 15.673.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2010 Implementation of a Complex Multidisciplinary Capstone Project for Stimulating Undergraduate Student DevelopmentAbstractComplex, multidisciplinary capstone projects require multi-faceted teams of faculty and students,representing two or more technical areas of expertise. Engineering education has emphasizedmore multidisciplinary work as graduates are expected to perform on
program”1.3. RFID Based Assistive Devices in Senior Design Sternberg in their work has stated that the pedagogical purpose of capstone design is to allowthe student an opportunity to experience how the content in the undergraduate curriculum fitstogether to provide a coherent vision of the knowledge necessary to complete a significantengineering project10. The capstone design project provides an opportunity for the student toimplement their skills combining what they have learned from a spectrum of their core classes. Students upon completion of the capstone design project and graduation enter theprofessional workforce where they work in multidisciplinary teams. This requires a goodunderstanding of other disciplines so as to communicate the
AC 2010-2313: THE BENEFITS OF TRANSPARENCY IN MANAGINGSOFTWARE CAPSTONE PROJECTSKevin Gary, Arizona State UniversityHarry Koehnemann, Arizona State University Page 15.1207.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2010 The Benefits of Transparency in Managing Software Engineering Capstone ProjectsAbstractThis paper describes the impact of an agile process support environment in helping facultymanage software engineering capstone projects and the learning outcomes associated with thecapstone experience. Software engineering capstone projects are notoriously time-consuming tomanage for faculty mentors. Team projects often fall behind due to the
AC 2010-1383: AN INDUSTRY-SPONSORED CAPSTONE PROJECT: A STORYOF SUCCESSKhalid Al-Olimat, Ohio Northern University Page 15.155.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2010 An Industry—Sponsored Capstone Project: A Story of SuccessAbstractThis paper presents a capstone project that has been sponsored by American Electric Power(AEP). AEP, like other companies, relies on shippers to move equipment long distances.Sometimes during these trips, the shipped object is damaged, causing financial losses. AEPrequested a device which monitors when and where damages occur. A device was designedwhich gives AEP this capability. Since the duration of a shipment may be up to two
AC 2010-1543: SIMULATING THE COLLABORATIVE DESIGN PROCESSTHROUGH A MULTIDISCIPLINARY CAPSTONE PROJECTCharlie Setterfield, Sinclair Community College Charlie Setterfield is an Assistant Professor of Architectural Technology. B.A. Wittenberg University, M.Arch Ohio State University. With more than 18 years experience in the architectural and construction industries, including responsibilities in all aspects of architectural project delivery and construction management, Mr. Setterfield brings real-world experience to the classroom. Setterfield’s courses focus on materials and means of construction, construction document preparation, “green building”, professional practice and building codes. As
firms. Page 15.419.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2010 Development of High Performance Capstone Project Teams and the Selection ProcessAbstractA successful Capstone Design program including companion design courses has beendeveloped1,2 that has become an integral and important component of the MechanicalEngineering curriculum. A variety of challenging projects are created each year to appeal tostudent academic and career interests. Students work in teams with the assistance of a facultyadvisor to tackle a significant mechanical engineering design project. The formation of studentteams
Capstone ProjectsAbstractCapstone Experience, MTC 420, is a required course for all Mechanical Engineering Technology(MET) students during their senior year. The capstone projects are intended to be culminatingexperiences, drawing upon a wide range of knowledge from courses in the curriculum. Studentsare responsible for written project specifications, planning and milestone identification,implementation of the work, an oral presentation, and a final written report.Because these projects are so comprehensive, they provide an opportunity for faculty to assess awide range of student learning that is directly related to program outcomes. For this reason, METfaculty developed a rubric for assessing capstone projects, as shown on the following page
AC 2010-362: REVITALIZING A CAPSTONE DESIGN SEQUENCE WITHINDUSTRIAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUESStacy Wilson, Western Kentucky UniversityMichael McIntyre, Western Kentucky University Page 15.1042.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2010 Revitalizing a Capstone Design Sequence with Industrial Project Management TechniquesAbstractThe capstone design experience is a staple in many engineering programs throughout the nation.The purpose of these courses or sequences often includes the execution of an applied researchproject where students have a culminating design experience, and an opportunity to completeengineering design tasks. At
AC 2010-596: TEACHING AND LEARNING OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT FORENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY CAPSTONE RESEARCH PROJECTSBill Yang, Western Carolina UniversityPhillip Sanger, Western Carolina UniversityPatrick Gardner, Western Carolina University Page 15.1167.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2010 Teaching and Learning of Project Management for Engineering and Technology Capstone Research ProjectsAbstractProject management has become an increasingly important skill for engineering and technologystudents of the 21st century especially for U.S. students. While much of routine design andmanufacturing tasks are continuing to move overseas notably to India
AC 2010-2132: CAPSTONES WITH AN INDUSTRY MODELMichael McGinnis, University of Texas, Tyler Dr. Michael McGinnis is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Texas at Tyler. He received his BS and MS in Civil Engineering from the University of Connecticut and his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Lehigh University. His research interests include fire behavior of structures and non-structural materials, nondestructive evaluation and K-12 math and science education.Ronald Welch, University of Texas, Tyler Ronald W. Welch is Professor and Chair for the Department of Civil Engineering at The University of Texas at Tyler in Tyler, Texas. Until Jan 2007
AC 2010-197: ADDRESSING THIRD WORLD POVERTY IN FIRST-YEARENGINEERING CAPSTONE PROJECTS: INITIAL FINDINGSJohn K. Estell, Ohio Northern University John K. Estell is Chair of the Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Department, and Professor of Computer Engineering and Computer Science, at Ohio Northern University. He received his doctorate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His areas of research include simplifying the outcomes assessment process, first-year engineering instruction, and the pedagogical aspects of writing computer games. Dr. Estell is a Senior Member of IEEE, and a member of ACM, ASEE, Tau Beta Pi, Eta Kappa Nu, and Upsilon Pi
AC 2010-226: A HOLISTIC APPROACH FOR STUDENT ASSESSMENT INPROJECT-BASED MULTIDISCIPLINARY ENGINEERING CAPSTONE DESIGNMark Steiner, Rensselaer Polytechnic InstituteJunichi Kanai, Rensselaer Polytechnic InstituteRichard Alben, Rensselaer Polytechnic InstituteLester Gerhardt, Rensselaer Polytechnic InstituteCheng Hsu, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Page 15.42.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2010 A Holistic Approach for Student Assessment in Project-based Multidisciplinary Engineering Capstone DesignAbstractA capstone design course involves multiple variables and complexities which make its teachingconspicuously challenging1,2; e.g., sponsors
achievingthe TAC2000 outcomes. In particular, our Senior Design capstone course (TEET4010/ 4020) isa comprehensive three-credit, two-semester engineering design course, that all engineeringmajors are required to take as their capstone experience. We view this course as a veryimportant component in the preparation of a trained EET professional. The course emphasizesboth hard and soft skills and serves as an emulation of a real world engineering project. We useboth, projects proposed by the faculty and projects contributed from local industry and wepartner the teams of student with faculty and industry mentors. As a result of their participationin this course, students are subjected to a real world engineering project development experiencefor the first
AC 2010-2035: PROJECT-ORIENTED CAPSTONE DESIGN IN CIVILENGINEERING: LINKAGES WITH INDUSTRY TO ENHANCE THE PRACTICEWaddah Akili, Iowa State University Page 15.999.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2010 Project–Oriented Capstone Design in Civil Engineering: Linkages with Industry to Enhance the PracticeAbstract: Teaching civil engineering design through senior projects or capstone design courses,with industry involvement and support, has increased in recent years. The general trend towardincreasing the design component in engineering curricula is part of an effort to better preparegraduates for engineering practice. While some design
AC 2010-2353: FIRST-YEAR AND CAPSTONE DESIGN PROJECTS: IS THEBOOKEND CURRICULUM APPROACH EFFECTIVE FOR SKILL GAIN?Daria Kotys-Schwartz, University of Colorado, Boulder DARIA KOTYS-SCHWARTZ is the Faculty Director for the Mesa State College-University of Colorado Mechanical Engineering Partnership Program and an Instructor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder. She received BS and MS degrees in Mechanical Engineering from The Ohio State University and a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Dr. Kotys-Schwartz has focused her research in engineering student learning, retention and diversity. She is currently
A Team-based ECET Capstone Project: Design and Implementation of a Solar Insolation Measurement SystemAbstractThis paper describes an example of the successful design and implementation of a Portable Self-powered Solar Insolation Measurement System. The project was designed and implemented by ateam of three students. Furthermore, the paper explores synthesis of student learning in terms ofenhancing their team work, problem-solving and analytical thinking skills. DeVry University’sElectronics Engineering Technology/Computer Engineering Technology (ECET) program seniorproject is a four-session course sequence in which students synthesize knowledge and skillslearned in the previous courses. In the first course
in the capstone experience. However, there is little transition between the highlydefined problems provided in lecture and laboratory courses versus the open-ended projectstudents are asked to solve in their capstone design course. The capstone design projects for theNanosystems Engineering program is provided by faculty across a variety of disciplines.Therefore, it became evident that rather than expecting each faculty mentor to provide certainbasic skills, a more effective approach would be to have all Nanosystems Engineering students towork on a smaller open-ended project in the last quarter of the Junior year to teach all theelements that they would need to apply more deeply in their capstone project the following year.The educational
AC 2010-811: THE CURRENT STATE OF CAPSTONE DESIGN PEDAGOGYJames Pembridge, Virginia TechMarie Paretti, Virginia Tech Page 15.1217.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2010 The Current State of Capstone Design PedagogyAbstractIn the fall of 2009, faculty involved in capstone design courses were surveyed to track trends inthe course structure and to explore current pedagogical practices. Where prior surveys probedcourse logistics, faculty involvement, project coordination, funding details, and industryinvolvement, this survey complements that work by also addressing the teaching beliefs andpractices of capstone faculty. The results provide a basis for