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The Conversion of Capstone Senior Design to a Two-Semester Format

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Conference

2024 South East Section Meeting

Location

Marietta, Georgia

Publication Date

March 10, 2024

Start Date

March 10, 2024

End Date

March 12, 2024

Page Count

12

DOI

10.18260/1-2--45567

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/45567

Download Count

58

Paper Authors

biography

Chau M. Tran Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-7910

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Chau Tran is an associate teaching professor in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering department at North Carolina State University. He is currently the course coordinator for capstone senior design and previously was the course coordinator for vibration, the director for undergraduate advising and the director for undergraduate laboratory. He teaches senior design and vibration annually. He received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from North Carolina State University in 1998.

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Abstract

This paper illustrates the conversion of capstone senior design from a one-semester format to a two-semester format and reveals the benefits of such conversion. In the past, a senior design project was completed in either a fall semester or a spring semester course. Since fall 2019, a senior design project was completed in a sequence of two courses, Mechanical Engineering Design I in the fall and Mechanical Engineering Design II in the spring. The one-semester format enables the students to adjust their schedule to accommodate an unforeseen change in graduation time. The two-semester format loses this flexibility and also takes away the available credit hours for a technical elective course; however, it provides the students with an opportunity to solve a more complicated project and produce a product of proven quality. With the two-semester format, the conceptual design phase increases from three to five weeks; the embodiment design phase increases from four to eight weeks and the prototype construction phase increases from five to eleven weeks. Besides additional design concepts, the two-semester format provides three new experiences – consultation with real-world engineers during the feasibility study review, construction of a mock-up model prior to building the prototype and substantiation of robustness.

Tran, C. M. (2024, March), The Conversion of Capstone Senior Design to a Two-Semester Format Paper presented at 2024 South East Section Meeting, Marietta, Georgia. 10.18260/1-2--45567

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