Senior Mechanical Systems Design Capstone Projects: Experiences and Assessment

Abstract

Organizing and completing an undergraduate senior design capstone project course that lasts only ten to eleven weeks (one quarter term) is challenging for both the instructor and for the students. In this paper, the experiences and assessment of few senior capstone design projects in the mechanical systems area is discussed in detail. The present author is the coordinator of this capstone course. One of the senior lab technicians helps the students outside the class hours with refining their design drawings, procurement of material, fabrication and testing phases. He helps the author instructor with the assessment of students' work by providing constant feedback about the progress the student groups make at various intervals of time.In this paper, sample capstone design projects and their outcomes will be presented. In particular, this paper gives an overview of the developed devices specifically by focusing on the design and development aspects of the prototypes. Rubrics for grading were provided at the beginning of the term and their progress monitored on a weekly basis. The student involvement includes understanding the strengths and weaknesses of their prerequisites knowledge needed to successfully complete the chosen project. Since Kettering is a co-op university, students alternate between academic and work terms. They have working knowledge and good time management skills. Industry interaction in the capstone courses is highly desirable but not always easy to secure due to various practical reasons that the companies have, one of which is short duration of the class (10 to 11 weeks).

Capstone Design Projects: Theory Meets Practice

“…4. The complete details of this design, analysis and assessment have been published in another earlier conferences [7,8]. Therefore, the details of the design calculations are not presented here.…”

“…Based on the several capstone projects carried out by the senior students at Kettering University [6], the present author discussed the challenges faced by the students, the learning outcomes, and the different assessment tools used to judge the quality of their work at two different conferences [7,8]. The main aim of the present paper is to provide brief technical details of one example project that were not published earlier in any conference.…”

Can ABET Assessment Really Be This Simple?

“…The example papers considered in this category include such diverse topics as using a lower level Physics course in outcome assessment [2], use of an on-line Ethics module [4], metrics for "inclusive and socially just teaming practices [5],and an assessment of information literacy for ABET's outcome 7 [6]. As many programs are now using a capstone design course or project as a major portion of their ABET assessment, there are numerous papers addressing different aspects of these, such as [3], which addresses the capstone from a mechanical engineering perspective; and [7]- [9], which address evolution of the capstone projects and their uses in ABET assessment.…”