GEDC 2016, WEEF 2016: Engineering Education for a Smart Society pp 30-45 | Cite as
Managing Industry Sponsored Capstone for Learning & Customer Satisfaction
Abstract
Capstone ranges across the spectrum as to how it is taught at various universities. Regardless, capstone’s purpose is to give the students an experience which includes technical education while emphasizing the aspects of: producing a product, planning, team work, project management, economics, safety for all, ethical behavior, and much more. Mechanical Engineering at the University of Kansas uses a three-course capstone sequence. The first course targets fully preparing students so that they’ve seen and done a complete project before tackling their main capstone project. For the two following courses, this allows planning their capstone projects and focusing on actually doing their projects. For project management, two faculty members handle the management and technical aspects of the design process; and the Sponsor is the Client, who wants a final product for its customers. This requires students to trade off the conflicting demands of “two bosses” and a Client, and requires that students learn to make priority decisions to accomplish their projects. Challenges are to improve Sponsor engagement, better engage students in the first course, and help students address conflicting direction from multiple bosses.
Keywords
Capstone Senior design Course sequencing Sponsor engagement Student engagement Conflicting direction Design process Technical design Project managementNomenclature
- ABET
Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (over the years, ABET has expanded to include accreditation of Computer Science and Applied Science programs)
- Capstone
Culminating experiential student project; also sometimes referred to as ‘Senior Design’
- Capst1a-1
Solid mechanics emphasis capstone course. Initially, students were required to take either Capst1a-1 or Capst1a-2. Both courses included “how to design” and a design project which was usually faculty initiated/developed; and both courses were one-semester long, taken in the last semester of the senior year
- Capst1a-2
Thermo-fluids emphasis capstone course. Initially, students were required to take either Capst1a-1 or Capst1a-2. Both courses included “how to design” and a design project which was usually faculty initiated/developed. and both courses were one-semester long, taken in the last semester of the senior year
- Capst1b-1
Solid mechanics emphasis capstone course. Students were required to take both Capst1b-1 and Capst1b-2, in order to become familiar with producing designs in both major sub-areas (solid mechanics and thermo-fluids) of ME. Both courses included “how to design” and a design project which was usually faculty initiated/developed. Both courses were one-semester long; and students could choose which course to take in which semester of the senior year
- Capst1b-2
Thermo-fluids emphasis capstone course. Students were required to take both Capst1b-1 and Capst1b-2, in order to become familiar with producing designs in both major sub-areas (solid mechanics and thermo-fluids) of ME. Both courses included “how to design” and a design project which was usually faculty initiated/developed. Both courses were one-semester long; and students could choose which course to take in which semester of the senior year
- Capst2b-1
Junior level “how to design” one-semester course, taken in the second semester of the junior year. This course did not include an open-ended design project, but did have faculty-developed example projects
- Capst2b-2
Senior level open-ended one-semester design project, taken in either the first or second semester of the senior year. This course used either faculty-developed projects or outside-KU-ME projects. Very seldom were these industry sponsored
- Capst-A
First semester of a two-semester senior level open-ended design project, which can be started in either the first semester of the senior year or last semester of the junior year. This course uses almost exclusively industry sponsored projects
- Capst-B
Second semester of a two-semester senior level open-ended design project, which can be in either the first or second semester of the senior year. This course uses almost exclusively industry sponsored projects
- Capst-prep
Junior level “how to design” one-semester course, taken in the second semester of the junior year. This course does not include an open-ended design project, but does have faculty-developed example projects
- Cornerstone-A
Freshman level course which includes a significant design problem. This course is heavily CAD oriented; and a student team from this course works with a student team from the Cornerstone-B course on a project that is developed by the faculty member who is simultaneously teaching both Cornerstone-A and Cornerstone-B
- Cornerstone-B
Freshman level course which includes a significant design problem. This course is heavily Elementary Programming oriented; and a student team from this course works with a student team from the Cornerstone-A course on a project that is developed by the faculty member who is simultaneously teaching both Cornerstone-A and Cornerstone-B
- Fr
Freshman standing (approximately first year) in the KU-ME curriculum
- IP
Intellectual Property
- Ju
Junior standing (approximately third year) in the KU-ME curriculum
- KU-ME
Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Kansas
- NDA
Non-Disclosure Agreement
- Se
Senior standing (approximately fourth year) in the KU-ME curriculum
- So
Sophomore standing (approximately second year) in the KU-ME curriculum
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