Su, J., & Nie, Z., & Wang, J., & Lin, Y. (2016, June), Lessons Learned from Multidisciplinary Senior Capstone Design Projects  Paper presented at 2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana. 10.18260/p.25553

\bibitem{asee_peer_25553}
  Su, J., \& Nie, Z., \& Wang, J., \& Lin, Y. (2016, June), \emph{Lessons Learned from Multidisciplinary Senior Capstone Design Projects}
  Paper presented at 2016 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana.
  10.18260/p.25553

Jheng-Wun Su, Zhengwei Nie, Jiamin Wang, and Yuyi Lin P.E..  "Lessons Learned from Multidisciplinary Senior Capstone Design Projects".  2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2016, June.  ASEE Conferences, 2016.  https://peer.asee.org/25553 Internet.  15 Oct, 2024

\bibitem{asee_peer_25553}
  Jheng-Wun Su, Zhengwei Nie, Jiamin Wang, and Yuyi Lin P.E..
  "Lessons Learned from Multidisciplinary Senior Capstone Design Projects".
  \emph{2016 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2016, June}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2016.
  https://peer.asee.org/25553 Internet.  15 Oct, 2024

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_25553
author = "Jheng-Wun Su, Zhengwei Nie, Jiamin Wang, and Yuyi Lin P.E."
title = "Lessons Learned from Multidisciplinary Senior Capstone Design Projects"
booktitle = "2016 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition"
year = "2016"
month = "June"
address = "New Orleans, Louisiana"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/25553}
number = {10.18260/p.25553}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Engineering educators, and students, are interested in exploring interdisciplinary teamwork in senior capstone design courses. This practice is believed to be beneficial for training future engineers to be more capable problem solvers.   At different times and schools, the success of multi-disciplinary senior capstone teams with different approaches have produced variable results.  Because design is multi-realizable, no single or simple method can be adopted for all engineering schools.

For some special circumstances, or new situations, in our College of Engineering, we have now combined two courses, the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Senior Capstone Design (MAE 4980) and the Engineering College Senior Capstone Design (ENGR 4890) into one class, with the same instructor from Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering.  Our ENGR 4890 students come from Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering, from Computer Science, and from Electrical and Computer Engineering.  They are all international transfer students, mostly from China, with some from India and Middle Eastern countries.  

Over the past 3 years (course offered twice each year), we have seen some beneficial results.  We no longer need electrical and computer technicians from Engineering Technical Services.  However, we still need to have a TA, or a graduate student chosen by the instructor who is good at electronics hardware and programming.  We have successfully designed a few projects that are truly multi-disciplinary, for example, a 3D printer, a rotor craft UAV, and a special purpose lab furnace.    We still cannot make all teams in a class multi-disciplinary, because some design topics do not have sufficient electronic content.  We also encounter difficulty with insufficient enrollment of students from a specific major or skill to make an interdisciplinary design team.   Several case studies illustrate our lessons learned, and plans to do more and better multidisciplinary senior capstone design projects for the future.


AU  - Jheng-Wun Su
AU  - Zhengwei Nie
AU  - Jiamin Wang
AU  - Yuyi Lin P.E.
CY  - New Orleans, Louisiana
DA  - 2016/06/26
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Lessons Learned from Multidisciplinary Senior Capstone Design Projects
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/25553
DO  - 10.18260/p.25553
ER  -