Senior Design Projects
Senior design projects—also known as “capstone” projects—are the centerpiece of the ME curriculum’s professional component, allowing students to be involved in interesting, real-world activities. Each senior is required to complete this course. Capstone projects are each advised by a full-time tenured or tenure track faculty member who works with the teams typically over the 9-month academic year.
Students can pursue their varied technical and professional interests through a selection of projects that include:
- Competition-based projects (human-powered submarine, SAE formula race car)
- Topically specialized projects (mechatronics, fuel cell)
- Industry-inspired/sponsored projects (MEDRIX UV water treatment system)
Capstone design projects allow students to experience the rigor and structure of a full-cycle design, including: problem definition, benchmark studies, concept generation and feasibility study, engineering design analyses, and in most cases, prototype fabrication and testing.
Through the capstone courses, students learn to fully define a design problem. This includes not only a statement of the project deliverables and objectives in the layman’s/client’s terms, but also a full definition of the agreed upon functional requirements and constraints (quantified). In the case of the competition-based projects, the problem definition is based on the detailed rules and guidelines of the competition.
For all other capstone projects, the external client engages in the review of the problem definition along with the faculty advisor to ensure that there is mutual understanding and agreement on the project scope and definition.
All of the capstone projects draw upon at least several fundamental engineering science areas and involve significant quantitative analysis often in the form of numerical simulation, typically preceded by approximate analytical solutions. Industry-inspired projects are carefully selected on the basis of the required fundamental engineering science areas and also to align with the core expertise of the faculty advisor.
See "Quick Links" to learn about some of the existing capstone projects or research areas.
