Successes Of An Early Conceptual Design Presentation For Senior Design Projects
- Conference
- Location
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Louisville, Kentucky
- Publication Date
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June 20, 2010
- Start Date
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June 20, 2010
- End Date
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June 23, 2010
- ISSN
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2153-5965
- Conference Session
- Tagged Division
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Design in Engineering Education
- Page Count
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9
- Page Numbers
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15.1141.1 - 15.1141.9
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--16384
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/16384
- Download Count
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359
Paper Authors
Nabila (Nan) BouSaba University of North Carolina, Charlotte
Nabila (Nan) BouSaba is a faculty associate in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Nan earned her BS in Electrical Engineering (1982), and a Master degree in Electrical Engineering (1986) from North Carolina A&T State University. Prior to her current position at UNC-Charlotte, Nan worked for IBM (15 years) and Solectron (8 years) in the area of test development and management. She teaches the senior design course and manages the standalone computers in the Electrical Engineering department.
James Conrad University of North Carolina, Charlotte
Bruce Gehrig University of North Carolina, Charlotte
G. Bruce Gehrig is an Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering Technology and Contruction Management. His areas of interest/specialization are: Water Resources Planning and Management, Design and Construction Integration, and Public Works Project Delivery and Management.
Daniel Hoch University of North Carolina, Charlotte
Dan Hoch is a faculty associate in the Engineering Technology Department at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He teaches courses in the Mechanical Engineering Technology department such as machining practices, senior design, and thermodynamics. Das areas of interest are related to thermal fluid design, internal combustion engines, and energy conversion.
Prior to his current position at UNC-Charlotte, Dan worked for Mercury Marine in Fond du lac, Wisconsin developing 2-stroke and 4-stroke engines and propulsion systems. After completing his graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Dan spent two years working as a research engineer in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the UW-Madison focusing on cryogenic and thermal fluid systems.
William Heybruck University of North Carolina, Charlotte
William Heybruck received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in 2001. Prior to becoming the Director of the UNC Charlotte College of Engineering Industrial Solutions Laboratory he was a Senior Engineer for Hitachi Global Storage Technologies specializing in the Microdrive and automotive hard disk drives. Prior to Hitachi, he was Product Development Manager for the Wireless products at IBM. He has three patents in the field of test technology.
Martin Kane University of North Carolina, Charlotte
Martin R. Kane, P.E., is an Associate Professor and Undergraduate Director of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
Peter Schmidt University of North Carolina, Charlotte
Deborah Sharer University of North Carolina, Charlotte
Deborah Sharer is an Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering Technology, specializing in Electrical Engineering Technology.
Steve Patterson University of North Carolina, Charlotte
Steve Patterson is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Science. He is also Director of the UNC Charlotte Energy Production and Infrastructure Center (EPIC).
Abstract
NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract
Successes of an Early Conceptual Design Presentation for Senior Design Projects Abstract
In the past, teams from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte College of Engineering two semester capstone senior design class first presented their project design at the end of the first semester. Their design consisted of a report and a poster presentation submitted to the faculty mentors, course instructors and company sponsors.
At the poster presentation (and in their report) we found that 35% of the teams did not include enough design detail and 25% had virtually no design details, which indicated they had not spent much time on the design effort. This caused project teams to start their second semester efforts behind schedule. By the end of the second semester, about 28% of all projects (but especially the late-starting projects) failed to meet their project requirements.
During the fall of 2009 we introduced a model in which each team presented the conceptual design of their project in the middle of semester one. This presentation, along with the discussion afterwards, has helped teams to focus on details of the design concept. The presentation has also given students a chance to enhance their presentation skills. The major beneficial result of the presentation is that teams are better able to complete the detailed design by the end of the first semester. Our goal from the early conceptual design presentation was to improve the quality of all projects design, and to eliminate the 25% project design failure from occurring.
Our initial results are that, based on our early focus on design instruction and presentation on design detail, nearly all teams had complete designs by the end of the first semester. Only 4% of the teams were judged as having virtually no design content, while 70% of the teams had completed designs.
Introduction
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte currently offers a two-semester, multi-disciplinary senior design sequence that spans all of the departments within the College of Engineering (COE). Industry-sponsored and faculty funded research efforts comprise the projects for the senior design sequence. This is particularly advantageous for the industry sponsors, since these sponsors are afforded the opportunity to initiate elective research projects in their respective areas of interest while working closely with seniors that the company may be interested in recruiting. Students prioritize their interest in available projects through analysis of posted Statements of Work and the course instructors, who represent all departments and programs in the COE, formed groups with three to four students containing diverse talents that would be representative of a typical engineering team in industry.
Students participating in the industry sponsored senior design program are expected to produce industry-standard deliverables throughout the two-semester course. The following documents are described in earlier papers1,2,3 and include: 1. Requirements and Capabilities
BouSaba, N. N., & Conrad, J., & Gehrig, B., & Hoch, D., & Heybruck, W., & Kane, M., & Schmidt, P., & Sharer, D., & Patterson, S. (2010, June), Successes Of An Early Conceptual Design Presentation For Senior Design Projects Paper presented at 2010 Annual Conference & Exposition, Louisville, Kentucky. 10.18260/1-2--16384
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