The Development of Cross-Institutional Senior Capstone Design Project Collaboration - A Pilot Project

Nikhil Gupta; Matthew J Jensen; Chiang Shih

Download Paper | Permalink

Conference: 2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: New Orleans, Louisiana
Publication Date: June 26, 2016
Start Date: June 26, 2016
End Date: June 29, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-692-68565-5
ISSN: 2153-5965
Conference Session: Capstone Design Courses II
Tagged Division: Design in Engineering Education
Page Count: 19
DOI: 10.18260/p.26124
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/26124
Download Count: 782

Paper Authors

biography

Nikhil Gupta Florida State University orcid.org/0000-0002-4766-4803

visit author page

Nikhil Gupta received his Bachelor of Technology degree from Y.M.C.A. Institute of Technology, Haryana, India in 2008, Master of Science degree from North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, in 2010, and Ph.D from Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, in 2014, all in Mechanical Engineering. He is currently an Adjunct Professor teaching Senior Design in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He is also serving as Postdoctoral Research Associate at Center of Intelligent Systems, Control, and Robotics (CISCOR) at Florida State University. His research interests are primarily in the areas of dynamic system modeling, intelligent control, autonomous mobile wheeled and legged robotics, dynamic motion planning, and mechatronics.

visit author page

biography

Matthew J Jensen Florida Institute of Technology orcid.org/0000-0002-5229-7382

visit author page

Dr. Matthew J. Jensen received his bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in 2006. Matthew received his doctorate from Clemson University in 2011 in Mechanical Engineering, focused primarily on automotive control systems and dynamics. During his graduate studies, Matthew was awarded the Department of Mechanical Engineering Endowed Teaching Fellowship. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering and the ProTrack Co-Op Coordinator at Florida Institute of Technology. His research interests include applications in automotive/transportation safety, electro-mechanical systems, data analysis strategies and techniques, dynamic modeling, and engineering education.

visit author page

biography

Chiang Shih Florida A&M University/Florida State University

visit author page

Dr. Chiang Shih is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering Department, FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, Florida State University. He received his Ph.D. degree from the Aerospace Engineering Department at the University of Southern California in 1988. He has served as the department Chair from 2002 until 2011 and is currently the Director of the Aeropropulsion, Mechatronics and Energy Center established in 2012. He is the coordinator of the ME Senior Capstone Design Curriculum and the dual degree B.S.-M.S. program.

visit author page

Download Paper | Permalink

Abstract

For years, engineers in industry have collaborated in teams with colleagues who are separated geographically. The accelerating pace of the globalization of design makes long-distance communication and project management necessary skill sets for engineers since many companies now operate internationally. Although the concept of a virtual design team is not new, it has not been widely adopted in engineering curriculum due to many challenges including: inadequate resource allocation, lack of instructors with virtual design experience, mismatched project course structures between schools, and the difficulty to sustain support to overcome coordination obstacles. In this paper, we will outline preliminary efforts in developing such a cross-institutional collaborative program between two engineering programs. Both programs have strong capstone design curriculum aiming to introduce the students to the real-world engineering design process through the participation in externally funded, hands-on design projects. Students are introduced to the industrial design process by forming cohesive teams where they interact among themselves, with industry sponsors, faculty advisors, and, sometimes, with multidisciplinary members outside engineering schools.

Over the years, program A has increased its multidisciplinary projects such that its students are required to collaborate with various engineering and non-engineering programs and, for the past few years, it has expanded the collaboration to a few international universities. Program A’s past experience with the multidisciplinary approach shows that such projects can leverage on the complementary skills and disciplinary expertise of individuals and institutions so that effective partnership can form to provide inspirational learning experience for all participants.

B has a similar senior design model, spanning a total of three semesters, a single credit junior design course held in the spring semester, followed by both senior year semesters. Being a smaller school with 14 different engineering disciplines, multidisciplinary senior design projects are commonplace, allowing students from various disciplines to work collaboratively to meet the end requirement(s). Oftentimes, senior design projects are industry-sponsored, although national design competitions are sometimes used as well.

Based on multiple deliberations between design coordinators and program leaders, the programs decided to establish a long-term partnership to develop multi-year cross-institutional senior capstone design projects. Similar to multidisciplinary projects, we expect structured coordination and effective communication will be needed to manage a cross-institutional team. Additionally, the project will utilize a virtual enterprise platform as well as some of the commercially available computational tools for collaborative design. Other challenges such as mismatched course management, team identity, responsibility delegation, and resource allocation might require extra efforts to overcome. Therefore, we have identified a well-defined nation-wide engineering design competition event as the first joint project to initiate the collaboration. A two-year plan has been drafted to ensure that student teams will not be overwhelmed by multi-tasks to complete all technical requirements, while mastering skills needed to organize a functional virtual team. This paper will discuss the challenges of executing such a project and how can we transform the pilot program into a sustained collaborative team learning experience beneficial to both programs.

Citation
Format

Gupta, N., & Jensen, M. J., & Shih, C. (2016, June), The Development of Cross-Institutional Senior Capstone Design Project Collaboration - A Pilot Project Paper presented at 2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana. 10.18260/p.26124

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - For years, engineers in industry have collaborated in teams with colleagues who are separated geographically.  The accelerating pace of the globalization of design makes long-distance communication and project management necessary skill sets for engineers since many companies now operate internationally.  Although the concept of a virtual design team is not new, it has not been widely adopted in engineering curriculum due to many challenges including: inadequate resource allocation, lack of instructors with virtual design experience, mismatched project course structures between schools, and the difficulty to sustain support to overcome coordination obstacles.  In this paper, we will outline preliminary efforts in developing such a cross-institutional collaborative program between two engineering programs.  Both programs have strong capstone design curriculum aiming to introduce the students to the real-world engineering design process through the participation in externally funded, hands-on design projects.  Students are introduced to the industrial design process by forming cohesive teams where they interact among themselves, with industry sponsors, faculty advisors, and, sometimes, with multidisciplinary members outside engineering schools.  

Over the years, program A has increased its multidisciplinary projects such that its students are required to collaborate with various engineering and non-engineering programs and, for the past few years, it has expanded the collaboration to a few international universities.  Program A’s past experience with the multidisciplinary approach shows that such projects can leverage on the complementary skills and disciplinary expertise of individuals and institutions so that effective partnership can form to provide inspirational learning experience for all participants.  

B has a similar senior design model, spanning a total of three semesters, a single credit junior design course held in the spring semester, followed by both senior year semesters.  Being a smaller school with 14 different engineering disciplines, multidisciplinary senior design projects are commonplace, allowing students from various disciplines to work collaboratively to meet the end requirement(s).  Oftentimes, senior design projects are industry-sponsored, although national design competitions are sometimes used as well.

Based on multiple deliberations between design coordinators and program leaders, the programs decided to establish a long-term partnership to develop multi-year cross-institutional senior capstone design projects.  Similar to multidisciplinary projects, we expect structured coordination and effective communication will be needed to manage a cross-institutional team.  Additionally, the project will utilize a virtual enterprise platform as well as some of the commercially available computational tools for collaborative design.  Other challenges such as mismatched course management, team identity, responsibility delegation, and resource allocation might require extra efforts to overcome.  Therefore, we have identified a well-defined nation-wide engineering design competition event as the first joint project to initiate the collaboration.  A two-year plan has been drafted to ensure that student teams will not be overwhelmed by multi-tasks to complete all technical requirements, while mastering skills needed to organize a functional virtual team.  This paper will discuss the challenges of executing such a project and how can we transform the pilot program into a sustained collaborative team learning experience beneficial to both programs.
AU  - Nikhil Gupta
AU  - Matthew J Jensen
AU  - Chiang Shih
CY  - New Orleans, Louisiana
DA  - 2016/06/26
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - The Development of Cross-Institutional Senior Capstone Design Project Collaboration - A Pilot Project
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/26124
DO  - 10.18260/p.26124
ER  -