Bureau of Highway Development, which oversees statewide road and bridge design including quality assurances and specialty areas such as elec- trical, hydraulic and municipal utilities. The bureau is also responsible for administration of federal aid to local agencies and has statewide responsibilities for real estate, utilities and transport permits. In Fall of 2009 John accepted his current position at Western Michigan University (WMU) as Adjunct Professor for the Capstone Senior Design Courses. The position is responsible for the development and coordination of real world projects that are sponsored by industry partners.Mr. Kevin James Phillips Currently working on Master of Civil Engineering, with a focus on
Second Edition (BOK2), aspromulgated by the American Society of Civil Engineers. During initial discussions, facultyrecognized that the program outcomes dovetailed perfectly with the goal of revitalizing the capstone.This paper discusses how the participation of industry practitioners, and adopting the BOK2outcomes, were applied to the capstone content, resulting in a much more interesting, professionaland vibrant sequence. Examples of resultant positive changes include clearer student deliverables andevaluator expectations, a more pragmatic approach to project scope and documentation, andmeaningful student/practitioner interaction at important project junctures.I. IntroductionThis manuscript focuses on re-engineering the major design and
forces and stresses be determined for the structure, but it does not specify how thoseresults are to be presented. Students then ask for specific instructions: “Do you want a table?Graphs? How many? They are not comfortable when the instructor replies asking them toconsider why those results are important in the context of the entire project and to use that todetermine how to best present the information.CVEN 400 – CapstoneThis study was conducted in a senior capstone design class for civil engineering students. Selfselected groups of four or five students work in a largely self directed environment to design aproject. The project for the semester reported herein was to create a design for a neo-traditionalneighborhood on a 46 acre tract of land
,Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).1 Providing students with real-life projects and challengesrelated to their majors can therefore be instrumental in fostering and maintaining their interest inSTEM. Being exposed to real projects and brainstorming society’s current challenges providestudents with a broader perspective related to the social-environment aspect of the application ofthe basic concepts they learn.1Currently, most institutions use a pedagogical philosophy of creating a bookend curriculum thatimplements project-based courses at the beginning and end of the undergraduate engineeringcurriculum. First-year engineering courses introduce students to the basic design process and itsrole in an engineering career. Senior capstone courses aim to
prepare them forreal-world industry experience, or perhaps for engineering Capstone programs. Indeed, recentresearch makes this argument, that college engineering Capstone programs would be even moresuccessful if students were exposed to project-based learning earlier in their schooling.18Despite the ambiguity that often occurs in open-ended, project-based assignments, we learnedfrom students and our reflections that instructors should do the following to minimizeambiguities: • Provide a clear time-line of expected deliverables and due dates. • Provide grading criteria up front. • Make available numerous examples of each deliverable. • And provide regular, substantive feedback throughout the process
bear on a givenmulti-discipline problem, the faculty decided that the grading rubric should be adjusted toensure that each outcome to include professional outcomes is being assessed within thecapstone course.21,22,23,24 There were over 17,000 search results for capstones being usedto provide direct results.25 Each capstone project requires coverage of the seventraditional sub-disciplines of civil engineering. Therefore, the capstone course is biggerthan one faculty to assess properly, so each faculty member assesses portions of the Page 22.1294.7submissions that fall into their areas of expertise. The entire faculty team has beeninvolved in the
4341synergistically assisted students in seeing the big design picture and the nuances ofteamwork, leadership and management required in the two-semester senior design(CENG 4115/4315) by analyzing and discussing solutions to leadership issues seenduring the one credit hour CENG 4115 in the fall and public policy affecting engineeringprojects in Texas, business practices that could constrain their capstone project design aswell as how well they have been managing their personnel assets within their team duringCENG 4315 in the spring. Even though some public policy is being covered inenvironmental engineering, the in-depth coverage of public policy and administrationwithin CENG 4341 along with leadership, business practices, asset management andother
issues that arise in a real projectmanagement experience. In some cases the graduate student continues this effort as his or herMS project option.Our advisory board and other alumni are anxious and willing to support efforts to strengthen andbuild our department’s program. They willingly provide not only advice, but significantamounts of time and resources to assist us. They recognize that, in many ways, they havesuperior knowledge and experience in some of the professional required in managing civilengineering operations and are willing to share that experience with students. We recognize thatstrong alumni support is strength for a department.The capability to acquire real, focused and doable senior capstone projects is a continuing issue.This
professional skills into capstone courses12. Due to theaforementioned reduction in credit hours and the coincidental expansion of topics to teach, the civilengineering faculty at OIT did not have space in the curriculum to develop new service learning orprofessional skills courses and they desired to have these skills introduced prior to entering thecapstone design experience. As such, the civil engineering faculty at OIT attempted to introduce thebasics of management, business, public policy, and leadership piecemeal throughout the curriculum,especially during a course on project management. However, in two separate assessments,summarized in Table 1, students revealed that they were greatly lacking in the ability to explain basicconcepts of these
AC 2011-1849: BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES OF GO!: AN INNOVA-TIVE ONLINE PUBLICATION TO ATTRACT TEENS TO TRANSPORTA-TIONShashi S. Nambisan, Iowa State University Shashi Nambisan, PhD, PE, is Director of the Institute for Transportation and a Professor of Civil Engi- neering the at Iowa State University. He enjoys working with students and he has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in the area of Transportation systems as well as undergraduate capstone design courses. Dr. Nambisan has led efforts on over 150 research projects. He has taught over a dozen under- graduate and graduate courses in various areas related to transportation systems as well as undergraduate capstone design courses. He also has been very
mixed up for each new project. As the numbers were uneventhere was the occasional architect-architect pairing (interestingly, we found this often resulted inthe least interesting design work). Further when we gave the students one opportunity to picktheir own partner (inside or outside their discipline), three quarters of the class chose to form aninterdisciplinary team.The course is an elective in both schools, but we hope that once the curriculum has been testedand refined that we will ultimately apply what we have learned to capstone design in engineeringand design studio in architecture. By quirk of scheduling and other core requirements all of theengineering students in the course so far have been third year students. These students are
senior faculty in the Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering at West Point.Dr. Kristen L. Sanford Bernhardt, Lafayette CollegeAndrea L Welker, Villanova University Dr. Andrea L. Welker, PE is an associate professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering depart- ment at Villanova University. Dr. Welker, a geotechnical engineer, teaches the following classes: Geology for Engineers, Soil Mechanics, Soil Mechanics Laboratory, Geotechnical Capstone Design, Foundation Design, Geosynthetics, Geoenvironmental Engineering, and Professional Practice. Most of Dr. Welker’s research focuses on the geotechnical aspects of stormwater control measures. In addition to her teach- ing and research duties, Dr. Welker is the
architecture degrees within the College of Environmental Design. Although there are somediscussions about creating an architectural engineering minor shared between the Civil Engineer-ing and Architecture Departments, no such program presently exists. The emphasis on structuralengineering is typically addressed through technical electives. The AE Studio is one such elec-tive.The impetus for experimenting with this type of collaborative environment was the College ofEngineering’s desire to build a pedestrian bridge connecting two engineering buildings. The con-ceptual design by students was attempted as a senior (capstone) project effort on more than oneoccasion. The results were predictable; the designs produced were structurally sound and eco-nomical
AC 2011-1348: GLOBAL INTERESTS AND EXPERIENCE AMONG FIRST-YEAR CIVIL ENGINEERING STUDENTSAngela R Bielefeldt, University of Colorado, Boulder Angela Bielefeldt, PhD, PE, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental, & Ar- chitectural Engineering at the University of Colorado - Boulder (CU). She is affiliated with the Mortenson Center in Engineering for Developing Communities at CU. She has taught the first-year Introduction to Civil Engineering course 13 times, starting in 1997. She also teaches a senior capstone Environmental En- gineering Design course, which included international water and sanitation projects in 2001, 2002, 2006, and 2010. Her research interests include ceramic water
professionalpractice.Ressler17 and others18,19,20,21 discuss the importance of service learning, communicating withcustomers, and collaborating with colleagues and professional associates. Still others discusspartnering with industry as sources of problems for capstone and research projects forinternships. These opportunities are intended to facilitate the transition from the classroom to theworkplace and expose students to practitioners who, in addition to modeling technical expertise,also demonstrate the centrality of effective communication in the workplace. Page 22.167.3In an analysis of communication skills in the engineering workplace, Nicometo et al. report
. Marquart. “Addressing Third World Poverty in First-Year Engineering Capstone Projects: Initial Findings,” Paper AC-2010-197, Proceedings of the 2010 ASEE Conference and Exposition, 2010.7. http://engineering.purdue.edu/EPICS. Accessed 1/20118. Coyle, E., L. Jamieson, and W. Oakes. “EPICS: Engineering Projects in Community Service,” International Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 21, No. 1, 2005.9. Gonzalez, E., E. Heisman, and G. Lucko. “Student-Centered Learning Environment for Disaster-Mitigating Engineering Design and Deployment in Developing Regions,” International Journal for Service Learning in Engineering, Vol. 5, No.1, pp. 189-209, 2010.10. Loendorf, W., D. Richeter, and D. Teachman. “Results from
AC 2011-1950: IMPLEMENTING PEER-REVIEWS IN CIVIL ENGINEER-ING LABORATORIESKatherine Kuder, Seattle University Assistant Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Seattle University, specializing in mechan- ics, structural engineering and cement-based materials.Nirmala Gnanapragasam, Seattle University Nirmala Gnanapragasam is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engi- neering at Seattle University and is the design coordinator of the senior capstone program for the depart- ment. She is a registered Professional Engineer in the State of Washington. Her interests include the professional practice of geotechnical engineering and engineering education research
Shashi Nambisan, PhD, PE, is Director of the Institute for Transportation and Professor of Civil En- gineering at Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa. He enjoys working with students and he has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in the area of Transportation systems as well as undergraduate cap- stone design courses. Dr. Nambisan has led efforts on over 150 research projects. He has taught over a dozen undergraduate and graduate courses in various areas related to transportation systems as well as undergraduate capstone design courses. He also has been very active in leadership roles of several pro- fessional societies. Among the awards and honors Shashi has received is a proclamation by the Governor of Nevada
, skills, and tools in engineering practice2.2 BOK IThe first committee on the BOK took a futuristic approach on infrastructure andenvironmental needs to develop a list of outcomes to elevate the depth and breadth ofknowledge, skills, and attitudes required of civil engineers desiring licensure. The firsteleven outcomes directly related to ABET’s eleven outcomes (3a-k). The twelfthoutcome called for “an ability to apply knowledge in a specialized area related to civilengineering.”1 Quickly all realized that this could not occur at the bachelor’s level. Theadditional outcomes were: • “an understanding of the elements of project management, construction, and asset management;” • “an understanding of business and public policy and