Framework Development with Successive Capstone Projects1. IntroductionThe undergraduate program at the Portland State University Department of Electrical andComputer Engineering (PSU ECE) includes a three-quarter capstone design sequence typicallytaken during the student's senior year. For the last three years, and a fourth currently ongoing attime of writing, a capstone project has been sponsored by the author's Wireless EnvironmentalSensing Technology (WEST) Lab. The purpose of these sponsored capstones are as follows: 1. In the short term, design a wireless sensor to solve a specific problem. 2. In the long term, converge at a more general-purpose hardware and software solution set with which to design future wireless
Paper ID #43290An In-Depth Examination of Assessment Methods for Capstone Projects—MeasuringSuccessKais Abdulmawjood, Texas A&M University at Qatar Mr. Kais Abdulmawjood is expected to complete his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at Ontario Tech University in 2024. He received his Master of Science degree (MSc) in electrical engineering, electronics, and communication from Al-Mustansiriya University (Baghdad, Iraq) in 1998. His B.Sc. was in Electrical Engineering from Baghdad University (Baghdad, Iraq). Kais is currently a Manager for the laboratories of the Electrical and Computer Engineering program (ECEN) at
capstone project. Apart from a light teamproject in their freshman introductory class, students in their sophomore and junior yearsgenerally only work with a lab partner. Without the experience working with larger teams,students in capstone often find their projects suffer due to teamwork issues they are unpreparedto deal with. In addition, while some sophomore and junior labs are project-oriented, they tend tobe much better defined and structured than capstone projects. Students go into capstone lackingexperience in defining, documenting, scheduling, reporting and in general managing a largeproject.The second reason is that students need to repeatedly practice complex tasks such as teamwork,project management, and communication. While the first
Capstone CourseKeywords: Capstone Projects, Electrical Engineering Education, Generative AI in Education,ChatGPT, Entrepreneurship in Engineering, Marketing and Design Requirements, ABET.1. IntroductionIn recent years, many engineering programs have integrated entrepreneurship education into thecapstone experience, blending technical engineering skills with entrepreneurial processes,namely ideation, customer discovery, client validation, and commercial viability [3] Theseprocesses enable students to translate their technical knowledge into economically relevantengineering practice. The objective is to produce graduates who are not only technicallyproficient but also capable of navigating the business landscape, ethically aware, and responsiveto
with real-world problems.Project-based learning focuses on creating projects that allow students to practice their technicaland professional skills on problems that embody those that they will work on and solve aftercompleting their degrees [5]. These types of experiences have been shown to help students byimproving their learning of the technical content, giving them freedom to explore their owndesigns and solutions while remaining relevant to their future career [6]. Many project-basedlearning experiences exist either in Capstone courses for students during their finalundergraduate year, or occasionally in Cornerstone courses, sometimes seen in first-yearengineering courses [7]. The ‘middle years’ of engineering programs often focus on
toolbox of many relevant toolsfor working on international development projects. These include low-cost, open-sourcemicrocontrollers (such as the Arduino) and computers (e.g. Raspberry Pi), low-cost communicationsdevices (e.g. Ubiquiti equipment), low-cost solar panels and LED lights, etc. There is an opportunity toengage ECE students in humanitarian engineering-oriented capstone projects that are focused onaddressing the UN Sustainable Development goals in underserved communities around the world.These types of projects are particularly engaging with today’s students who are interested in making adifference in the world and may struggle to see such an impact in traditional electrical engineeringcurricula. The topic of humanitarian engineering may
students. Studentswork on a supervised project and in a team setting to learn workplace fundamentals, teamwork,and project management skills. Topics include teamwork assessment, management vs. leadership,critical thinking for design of experiments and project management techniques. The course isoffered in the first semester of the junior year and is followed by the project seminar course in thesecond semester of the junior year. These two courses set the stage for the capstone senior designcourse (two semesters, fall and spring) in the final year of the undergraduate engineering program.The course schedule is shown below in Table 1. There are fourteen sessions (one in each week)in the semester. Each session lasts three hours
selected core subjects is provided in Figure 1. Here the ‘clinic’nomenclature invokes the notion of a medical school clinical rotation, in which future doctorspractice applying concepts learned in class through hands-on interactions with patients. Theinclusion of CDC within the specialization has a similar aim, with the intention of givingstudents the opportunity to integrate and apply prerequisite knowledge, strengthen their designskills, and develop professional competencies required for project work. In this way, the subjectcan be viewed as a ‘mini-capstone’ for the specialization, although there is a separate year-longcapstone requirement all students in the degree must complete. The clinic subject is seen as acrucial opportunity to give
, while simultaneously pursuing increasingly difficult projects from one course to the next. Typical course sequences include: o CpE 3150 → CpE 3110 → CpE 5410 & CpE 5220 o EE 3410 → CpE 5450 & CpE 5610 o FWE → EE 3120 Students were able to use the learnt skills to implement capstone experiential learning and senior design projects [10, 11, 14, 15, 20, 21]. This culmination of skill building endeavor is by far the biggest pro feedback for executing project-based courses. For the student, an obvious drawback of this undertaking is the limited availability of such project-based course sequences. Enjoyable and fun learning experiences?: While the amount of experienced
Paper ID #42283Tinkercad—Not Just for KidsProf. Branimir Pejcinovic, Portland State University Branimir Pejcinovic received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is a Professor and former Associate Chair for Undergraduate Education at Portland State University, Electrical and Computer Engineering department. He has led department-wide changes in curriculum with emphasis on project- and lab-based instruction and learning. He was awarded the best paper award by the ECE division of ASEE in 2017 for his work on freshman engineering course development. His research interests are in the areas of
addressing the demand to prepareengineers ready to grapple with complex global problems and effectively seek nuancedunderstandings in 2030 and beyond.New model for a holistic capstone experienceA decade ago, the Electrical Engineering Department at University of South Florida (USF)had one faculty member advising approximately 80% of the capstone projects. Initial internalevaluation of the capstone design courses and projects showed a disconnect between the twosemesters of the capstone design as well as project management and assessment challenges.In 2012, through a significant departmental-level reform, approximately 40% of the entiredepartment's full-time faculty got involved in capstone design. In the same year, a newcurriculum development
fix the deficiencies was not effective.While there are introductory level project-based courses in the first year, students do not haveenough technical background to make the projects technically challenging. While they may getsome teamwork experience from such courses, they usually only get very basic, if any, trainingin project management. This is why we decided to introduce our cornerstone courses in thesophomore year.We developed a two-quarter-long course sequence: one focused on design processes and anotheron project implementation [1-6]. We had two overarching goals: 1. Teach students design and project development well before senior Capstone projects. 2. Integrate various strands of electrical and computer engineering through
a dedicated module within the Embedded Systems Course-2 and capstone designcourses, utilizing industry-standard design tools such as Eagle CAD or Altium Designer. Tostrengthen students’ programming skills, additional lab assignments covering advanced Cprogramming topics—such as pointers, data structures, and algorithms—can be integrated intothe Embedded C programming class and Embedded Systems Course-2. Additionally, systemtesting and debugging concepts can be incorporated into final embedded systems projects byrequiring students to conduct structured debugging exercises using tools like logic analyzers,oscilloscopes, and embedded system debuggers. Lastly, collaborating with industry experts to provide workshops on emerging
and advanced vector networkanalyzers, that are typically used in the SI laboratory, which tends to be very expensive andbeyond the standard laboratory equipment in an undergraduate program. In this paper, we reporton the efforts that we have made to keep our signal integrity lab current with new laboratoryexperiences and capstone projects and undergraduate research. For example, recently, we haveobtained support from the Office Naval Research and the local administration to acquire newVector Network Analyzer to enhance undergraduate/graduate education and research in signalintegrity. We have also received a time domain reflectometer (TDR) donation from a localcompany, and submitted a new Major Research Instrumentation (MRI), National
students in hands-on projects and problem-solvingactivities [1], [10]. These are not simply introductory surveys; they involve active design andbuilding experiences. This early and consistent exposure to design and prototyping continuesthroughout the program. Laboratory courses, integrated with lectures, reinforce theoreticalconcepts in subsequent years. The curriculum culminates in team-based senior capstone projects.These capstone projects frequently address authentic engineering challenges, often in collaborationwith industry partners, providing students with invaluable real-world experience. This approach,embedding industry partnerships, internships, and co-op experiences throughout the studentjourney, ensures graduates possess both technical
Engineering and Computer Science, theOffice of Undergraduate Studies at Sacramento State, and by NSF grant (DUE # 2235774).IntroductionEngineering curricula characteristically have long and highly regimented chains of pre-requisitecourses called ‘critical paths’, that span the entire curriculum from students’ freshmen year tosenior-year capstone projects. Critical-path courses can create significant obstacles to graduationas a single DFW (grade of D, F, or withdrawal) grade in any course can impede a student'sability to graduate on time. Reducing course fail rates along the critical path significantly reducesthe students’ time to degree. Furthermore, research shows that students exposed to engineeringdesign [1] and research experiences [2] have a
PCB workshop, which equips students with the skills to designand implement custom Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs). Students learn industry-standard practicesfor schematic capture, component placement, and PCB design, using DipTrace software.A hallmark of the course is the capstone project, where students work in teams to design andimplement innovative solutions. Teams conceptualize project ideas, refine them through instructorfeedback, and prepare a Bill of Materials (BoM) for required components. These projects allowstudents to apply their knowledge to solve practical engineering problems while gainingexperience in teamwork and project management. The department supports these efforts byprocuring necessary components, ensuring that students
shared repository andhighlighted many of the practical and logistical issues that needed to be resolved as theSCHOLAR approach evolved [7].https://gitlab.msu.edu/CMSE/data_science_bridge_curriculumCase Study: Undergraduate Data Science CapstoneStarting in the spring of 2023, the SCHOLAR approach was integrated into the data sciencecapstone course at Michigan State University (MSU). Data science is a new undergraduate majorat MSU, with the first senior-level capstone design course offered in spring 2022. This coursetypically serves 60 students divided into 12 project teams working with community partners on avariety of real-life data science challenges. During the first year, it became apparent that studentsboth needed tutorials and resources for
1 (Highest priority) 52% 43% 7% 2 32% 33% 33% 3 (Lowest priority) 16% 23% 60%Overall, the perceptions of EA education in terms of quantity and quality remained consistentwith the previous year’s workshop. The workshop participants broadly saw a need to improvehow EA education is taught and to expand the number of universities teaching it, especiallywithin the curriculum at the undergraduate level.Enhancing the Classroom ExperienceThe workshop allocated considerable time to discuss the curricular teaching of EA. Here,curricular teaching includes courses, capstone projects, and independent studies with a focus
CBE 3315A/B Chemical Reaction Engineering AISE 3351A/B Machine Learning for Engineers 4 CBE 4415A/B Process Dynamics and Control CBE 4424A/B Biochemical Engineering AISE 4430A/B AI Applications in Chemical Engineering 5 CBE 4497 Chemical Engineering Design Project AISE 4499 AISE Capstone ProjectCivil Engineering (Structural Stream) with AISE Specialization: Year Course Code Course title 2 CEE 2202A/B Structural Mechanics CEE 2220A/B Surveying AISE 2205A/B Introduction to Artificial Intelligence 3 CEE 3326A/B Structural Analysis CEE 3348A/B Reinforced Concrete Design AISE 3351A/B Machine Learning for Engineers 4 CEE
exposure and emphasis on ethical dimensions. Consequently,students may possess limited awareness and comprehension of ethical matters.Few approaches exist for integrating engineering ethics into the curriculum. These range fromstandalone courses specifically dedicated to ethics, integration within philosophy coursework, toopen discussions within capstone design classes, and modules infused into technical courses.Each approach carries its unique set of benefits and drawbacks. Regarding content, researchinginto engineering ethics entails an examination of ethical case studies. However, grasping thetheoretical foundations of ethics is crucial for comprehending diverse ethical perspectives.In the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at
Paper ID #40331Challenges in Designing Complex Engineering Problems to Meet ABETOutcome 1Dr. Bijan G Mobasseri, Villanova UniveristyMs. Liesl Klein, Purdue University at West Lafayette (PPI) Liesl Krause-Klein is a assistant teaching professor at Villanova University in their electrical and computer engineering department. She graduated from Purdue University’s Polytechnic institute in 2022. Her research focused on student well-being. She is currently in charge of curriculum for capstone projects within her department.Mr. Edward Stephen Char Jr., Villanova University BS EE Villanova University 1996 MS EE Villanova
summarize the findings and present nextsteps.2 Class DesignAt Northwestern University, all engineering degrees end with a capstone design class. Inelectrical and computer engineering, this involves two courses: one to prepare students forindependent design, and one to showcase the design skills through a considerable project. Thecourse detailed in this manuscript is the former.The overall goal of the course is to provide a rigorous preparation for the general skills that arenecessary to make a professional embedded system. To this end, there are two main components:learning and practice. In the classroom, students learn a bevy of pertinent skills, which will bedetailed in Section 2.2. In the laboratory, students put their knowledge to use to
breadboard, andtaking electrical measurements in a series of integrated laboratory-lecture experiences. The classculminates in an open-ended design project in which the student proposes a system that uses amicrocontroller to accomplish a useful task. While open-ended “capstone” design projects are amainstay of engineering curricula, first-year “cornerstone” projects that introduce the designprocess to novice engineering students have recently become more prominent (Sheppard et al.,2009, pp. 84, 91; Vest, 2005; Whitfield et al., 2011; Zajdel & Maharbiz, 2016b). We propose thatsuch design experiences would be impactful to non-major students’ technical education as well.Students outside of the engineering disciplines can develop these technical
projects; 10 out-of-class hours to attending two seminars in adepartmental lecture series and completing assignments; and 35 in-class hours to addressingknowledge and skills that build the student’s capacity for completing their capstone projects.The PFE course sequence is available to students beginning in their second semester of theprogram, and students can take the PFE course sequence through their junior year. Students arenot required to take each PFE course consecutively. The same instructor teaches all threecourses, ensuring that the courses follow a logical progression of skill development. Courseenrollment is increasing each semester, as students now entering as freshmen have the courses asrequirements for graduation. Objectives for each
Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Utah and he is an Associate Editor at the ACM Transactions on Privacy and Security. His research is centered around the security and privacy of cyber-physical systems using tools from control theory, optimization, and machine learning, with applications in power systems resilience.Dr. Hamed Nademi, California State University, San Marcos Dr. Hamed Nademi is an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering at California State University-San Marcos (CSUSM). He worked as PI/Co-PI with industry-sponsored projects granted by New York State together with utility companies focusing on control solutions, autonomous digital power grids and transportation electrification. Dr
and instructors withdiverse teaching backgrounds. The program curriculum combined conceptual and technicalinstruction in AI, emphasizing experiential learning through project-based activities andreal-world applications. Spanning 4.5 weeks, the program utilized a structured schedule oflectures, workshops, and team-based projects, culminating in a capstone presentation.Research DesignThis study is an iteration of formative assessment in a more extensive design-based research anddevelopment project. In this iteration, we explore instructors' experiences within this uniqueeducational context during the first year of implementation. This design suits the researchquestions, allowing in-depth exploration of complex, real-world phenomena in a
Paper ID #42197Introduction to Electrical Engineering: Empowering and Motivating Studentsthrough Laboratory-Focused TeachingDr. Ilya Mikhelson, Northwestern University Dr. Ilya Mikhelson is an Associate Professor of Instruction in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Northwestern University. His technical work focuses on signal processing and embedded systems. Besides teaching, Dr. Mikhelson has worked with dozens of students on independent projects, and has created 3 brand new, project-heavy courses in Electrical Engineering. He is constantly experimenting with pedagogical innovations, and is very passionate about
interactions • Senior design project - The hallmark of the engineering curriculum at Seattle University is our senior design (capstone) project, an academic year-long design project sponsored by local industry, government agencies, or nonprofit organizations. The Project Center at Seattle University interfaces with sponsors to find real-world assignments for design teams typically comprised of 4 students and supported by a faculty advisor, an industry liaison, and a department project coordinator. Over the course of the academic year, teams are responsible for both technical aspects of the project including designing, building, and testing a prototype (if applicable), and project management
personal andprofessional settings. Another example is the ‘Professional Continual Learning’ module in ECEGR 3710, a spring quarter course forstudents in their junior year. It is at this point that many students begin thinking about post-graduation pathways and exploringopportunities to strengthen their career preparedness. Finally, ECEGR 4870, the first course in a three-quarter senior design (capstone)sequence and a key touchpoint before students enter the workforce, seemed well-suited for the ‘Social Responsibility’ and ‘Bias andMicroaggression’ modules.Table 1: Pilot Implementation Plan for AY 2024-25. An overview of the modules highlighted is included in this paper.Course Course Title Quarter Program Curricular Outcome