Conference Session

Capstone Design Projects in Mechanical Engineering

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Kelley Racicot, Washington State University; Charles Pezeshki, Washington State University

Tagged Divisions

Mechanical Engineering

commercial Project Management (PM) software application, Basecamp,was also utilized. Basecamp is a commercially available web-based project managementsystem that provides basic PM functions such as calendaring, messaging, and groupingand is relatively inexpensive. Basecamp is used to manage the day-to-day projectactivities, such as creating to-do lists, scheduling activities, and monitoring projectmilestones. All students, corporate sponsors, staff and faculty upload their contactinformation and photos. The entire project history is archived at the end of eachsemester.The Industrial Design Clinic serves other purposes besides giving students an opportunityto master engineering design. Engineering graduates are increasingly expected to have

Conference Session

Improving ME education: Broad Topics

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Peter Schuster, California Polytechnic State University; Andrew Davol, California Polytechnic State University; Joseph Mello, California Polytechnic State University

Tagged Divisions

Mechanical Engineering

can become too involved in the design as well. There is a level of advisorinvolvement where the project ceases to be truly run by the students and the advisor becomes thechief engineer. This ensures specific experiences but in a sense the team is less empowered.One way to avoid this risk is to leave the design decision-making to the students. Then, theadvisor’s role can be to support the project planning and technical development (as a consultant).How best to have an advisor involved in the project? With increasing demands on our time, howis a faculty advisor to allocate his energy most effectively? Here are a few alternatives:Integrate into CurriculumMany schools integrate these competitions into their course work, often by tackling the