Interdisciplinary Capstone Design

(0-2-6-3)

CMPE Degree: This course is Selected Elective for the CMPE degree.

EE Degree: This course is Selected Elective for the EE degree.

Lab Hours: 0 supervised lab hours and 6 unsupervised lab hours.

Technical Interest Groups / Course Categories: Senior Design

Course Coordinator: Michael E West

Prerequisites: ECE 3011 [min C] and (ECE 3005 [min S] or ECE 3006 [min V]) and ((ECE 3025 [min C] and ECE 3040 [min C] and ECE 3043 [min C]) or ECE 3058 [min C]) 

Catalog Description

Seniors will work in teams to apply a systematic design process to real multi-disciplinary problems. Problems selected from a broad spectrum of interest areas, including biomedical, environmental, mechanical, industrial design, electrical and thermal/fluids. Projects must be based on the knowledge and skills acquired in earlier course work, and incorporate appropriate engineering standards and multiple realistic constraints. Emphasis is placed on the design process, the technical aspects of the design, and on reducing the proposed design to practice. The course consists of faculty and guest lectures, prototyping in design studios, and a multi-disciplinary design project.

Textbook(s)

Course Outcomes

Form multidisciplinary teams

Work in teams with advisors and perhaps a sponsor

Identify roles, resources, tradeoffs, and constraints

Propose a project with demonstrable quantitative Technical Specifications

Construct in a bounded time a project appropriate to their technical training

Submit cyclical status reports 

Demonstrate their results before a suitable audience

Execute a public presentation

Maintain and provide final documentation suitable for project reproduction or continuation

Strategic Performance Indicators (SPIs)

N/A

Topic List

Working in teams, students will complete their capstone design project requiring specification, design, implementation, testing, and project demonstrations. Projects must be based on the knowledge and skills acquired in earlier course work, and incorporate appropriate engineering standards and multiple realistic constraints. For teams including CmpE majors, the project must incorporate both hardware and software design elements and trade-offs between the two. Emphasis is placed on the design process, the technical aspects of the design, and on reducing the proposed design to practice.

Topics for the scheduled weekly meeting with the team’s faculty advisor include the following

  1. First Report proposal approval & permission to begin the project ‘build’ phase
  2. On-going meetings with team’s faculty advisor
  3. Mid-semester Design Review report and presentation at Advisor’s discretion
  4. Project Final Demonstration, Presentation, & Documentation