Socially-Relevant Capstone Design Projects in Power Engineering

A critical open question in the mechanical engineering pedagogical literature is whether Capstone senior design can be taught as effectively online as in-person with emphasis on whether group work conducted under these contrasting conditions is equally effective. The onset of COVID-19 induced a natural experiment enabling comparison of engineering student group work conducted in-person versus all-online. Group work is an essential element of mechanical engineering education codified by Student Outcome 5 of ABET Criterion 3 (Groupwork). Peer evaluation is a common engineering group work assessment, especially in Capstone design courses. In this paper, recurring peer evaluations are evaluated to quantify how well students performed in groups within a longitudinal study conducted across five semesters of a mechanical engineering Capstone senior design course. In UF’s Mechanical Engineering Capstone courses, recuring peer evaluation surveys tied to group assignment deadlines were already established prior to COVID-19. By continuing to deploy this same survey when courses transitioned online during the pandemic, three full semesters of group performance data were collected when students were forced to meet remotely. As students returned to campus, the same survey provided comparative data for two semesters when students were meeting in person. These collected data represent a quantitative tool to evaluate how online vs. in-person group meeting setting impacts the quality of teamwork. This work shows that online vs. in-person meeting environments DID NOT have statistically significant impacts on teamwork performance for mechanical engineering Capstone students in the semesters being evaluated. This result suggests that ABET Criterion 3 Student Outcome 5 can be met just as effectively in online or in-person Capstone courses. This important result debunks the misconception that the quality and fidelity of Capstone groupwork is somehow diminished when senior design is taught online to learners remote from each other over the Internet. This finding adds to the growing body of evidence supporting the viability of an all-online Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering program capable of receiving and maintaining ABET accreditation. Moreover, a forward-looking online ME program can include an effective Capstone senior design course with rich student groupwork interactions of quality equal to those experienced by students when meeting in-person.

Senior capstone design courses provide students the opportunity to develop their design skills and learn about the product development process. Student project teams, a number of which are industry-sponsored, often develop creative design solutions that result in the creation of intellectual property. When this occurs, who owns the intellectual property: the student, faculty advisors, industry sponsors, or academic institutions? The paper discusses how academic institutions, such as the Marquette University, deal with intellectual property and confidentiality issues in senior capstone design courses, in particular those that deal with biomedical engineering.

In a multifaceted course such as senior capstone design, it is integral to ensure students are receiving a value adding experience. In most universities across the United States, senior capstone design is a multiple semester sequence where design is heavily emphasized and students are encouraged to test their skills, both technical and nontechnical, by solving and implementing solutions to real industry problems. Given the nature of design courses, the takeaways are not things that can be measured solely through the use of a letter grade. Rather, an in-depth reflective interview must be performed to fully comprehend what students received from the course. In this study, an In-Depth Interview Protocol was developed to understand the effectiveness of engineering design courses and improve design education as a whole. This paper outlines the phases that contribute towards the development of an effective interview protocol for implementation in senior capstone design curriculum. The formulation and considerations are outlined with respect to design curriculum and student success. This protocol will be utilized to perform a Reflection Interview for each senior design project team at the end of the spring 2019 semester. The assignment is not graded and is inquisitive on the students’ perceptions of motivation during their time at Florida Tech. The qualitative data gathered will be eligible for further studies and analysis.

The capstone design course is a senior level course in large number of civil engineering and construction programs. This course bridges the gap between education and industry by emphasizing project-based learning, asking students to accomplish open-ended project planning and system design. This study aims to investigate the potential of incorporating service learning into capstone courses in Civil Engineering, Construction Engineering, and Construction Management curricula. To accomplish this objective, a questionnaire is designed and will be distributed among alumni of Purdue University as well as Durham School of Architecture Engineering and Construction. The questionnaire is asking about the main learning objectives of the current capstone courses, objectives that can be better covered by a service learning project, and the most practical, efficient, and systematic way to incorporate service learning into capstone courses. The results of this study can be used to successfully incorporate service learning as a more advanced authentic performance task into the capstone senior design course and increase the student's experience with real-world issues, and enhance required skills such as project management, project planning, and cost analysis and estimation.

It is sometimes forgotten that industry is an important customer of engineering education. Ignoring this relationship has produced graduates that often fail to meet the changing needs of industry in today's competitive environment. On the basis of feedback from our industrial customers, faculty from Mechanical Engineering and Manufacturing Engineering at Brigham Young University have jointly developed a new senior capstone design course entitled “Integrated Product and Process Design.” This new capstone course is centered on industrial design and manufacturing projects. These projects involve both product and process design activities. Multidisciplinary teams of students are taught a structured development approach to produce typical industrial deliverables. These deliverables include a functional specification, product and process design, prototype, and first production sample. This paper identifies changing industrial needs, describes how the course was designed to meet these needs, and presents results from the initial offerings of the course.

This paper presents the findings of a study comparing the motivational factors and performance of two mechanical engineering senior capstone design course cohorts: 2014 and 2015 students. The study measures the motivation of students throughout capstone, a non-traditional course, and the impacts motivation had on their course performance (peer evaluations and team grade). The second cohort participated in an intervention plan during a design methodologies course completed the semester prior to senior capstone design. Quantitative data was collected at both the beginning and end of the course; whereas, qualitative data was collected at the end of the course. Our method utilizes an adapted version of the Motivational Student Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ). The survey asks a variety of questions to measure the performance and motivation levels of the student. Performance factors studied are cognitive value and self-regulation. Motivation factors include presentation anxiety, intrinsic value, and self-efficacy. Statistical analysis is performed among the factors, cohort populations, and within the population (male versus females and domestic versus international) to identify if a correlation exists with student course performance. Amongst other findings, the results indicate the student’s experienced positive change due to participation in the intervention plan.

A senior capstone design course entitled Integrated Product and Process Design has been jointly developed and taught at Brigham Young University by faculty from the departments of both mechanical and manufacturing engineering. The course features a structured approach to product and process design based on the Quality Function Deployment system. Teams of four to five students from both mechanical and manufacturing engineering work on selected, industrially sponsored design projects. These projects require both design and manufacturing solutions. The students are required to develop both functional prototypes and manufacturable production samples. An industrial environment is fostered in the course. The content of the course and an evaluation of its effectiveness are discussed. >

Assessment in capstone engineering design courses is vital to engineering education programs. The capstone design course is the climax of design education and often the context for much of the assessment done in engineering degree programs. Capstone design course instructors’ admittedly low confidence for assessing student performance in these courses poses a crucial obstacle to the assessment process. A key issue is a lack of clear outcomes definition for engineering design and sound, defensible assessments for these outcomes. This paper draws from findings in design literature and from engineering design education experience to construct a conceptual model of engineering design that guides development of associated design learning outcomes and assessment of student achievements in design. A conceptual model of design is vital to design education, because it is one of three essential cornerstones— model, observation, and interpretation— for constructing assessments. In the context of an engineering classroom, design performance produces two different and complementary types of outcomes: learner development and solution development. Further, design is: open-ended, iterative, creative, collaborative, goal-driven, process-intensive, productfocused, customer-oriented, value-added, and constrained by society. Learner and solution development usually progresses from a state of students’ fragmented understanding and ideas to a more mature state of integrated understanding and design solutions. The proposed conceptual model for engineering design identifies four areas of performance that describe design: (1) personal capacity, (2) team processes, (3) solution requirements, and (4) solution assets. The first two characterize learner development and the latter two characterize solution development. Personal capacity is the designer’s development of skills which support technically sound and responsible design. Team processes address a team’s behaviors and productivity in design activities. Solution requirements address the team’s understanding of stakeholder needs and concerns. Solution assets encompass the value added, practicality, and impact of the design solution. These four performance areas are essential to design. They identify performances that develop over time, contribute to the success of design outcomes, and stimulate growth in one another for integrated enhancement of design performance. They also provide the basis for a versatile, comprehensive definition of engineering design performance that can guide instruction and can focus assessments in capstone engineering design courses.

Why Our Students Need a Senior Capstone Design Course

Mechanical design education focuses on teaching students with fundamental design theory and methodology. Educators systematically introduce design theories, processes, and tools to help students solve design problems. Companies and professional organizations expect that students will be equipped with basic understanding of the engineering practice, and be able to effectively perform independently and in a team environment. Senior capstone design courses, particularly with industry sponsored projects, are widely used to satisfy both education and professional needs of students. This paper presents an education system, which can further facilitate students to acquire design skills in a real-time collaborative, and practical environment. The web-based system helps student teams to: (1) specify the design process for their team projects, (2) organize and distribute tasks among different team members to simulate industry design environment, and (3) get instantaneous access to models, analysis, etc. related to their design. The developed web-based system also contains a knowledge-base that provides students with instructions to setup the design process for projects, and to perform different design tasks. A virtual design organization is created in the system, which is managed by students. In this paper different components of the web-based design education system are presented.

The Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering at West Point has recently established a multi-disciplinary research and educational outreach center that has a two-fold mission: enhance the undergraduate educational experience of students and assist in solving real-world technical problems, supporting global Army operations. This is accomplished by tying projects directly to the undergraduate education mission and gaining efficiency by consolidating administrative and outreach functions for multiple existing research programs. The paper describes the Center for Innovation and Engineering (CIE), its lines of effort, and several past and current initiatives. Assessment data from students participating in the senior capstone design course, which is closely tied to the CIE, reinforces the importance of multi-disciplinary, client-based projects in the engineering education experience.

본 논문은 공학교육과정에서 사용되는 캡스톤디자인 교과목에 대한 평가체계의 개발 사례를 소개한다. 캡스톤디자인은 대학 과정에서 배운 전문지식을 종합적으로 활용하여, 산업현장의 문제를 분석하고 해결책을 설계하는 교과목이다. 본 논문에서는 캡스톤디자인 교과목과 관련된 기존의 평가 요소, 평가 방법 및 절차를 설명한다. 이를 기반으로 개발된 캡스톤디자인 평가체계를 소개한다. 본 논문에서 제시한 캡스톤디자인 교과목의 학습성과 평가체계는 타대학의 캡스톤디자인 교과목 운영 시 일부 참고될 수 있으며, 산학이 연계된 교육 및 인턴 프로그램 개발 시 평가체계 설계를 위해서도 사용될 수 있다. This paper introduces a case study on the development of the evaluation system for capstone design course which is usually provided at engineering education program. A capstone design is an engineering education course which aims to improve the students' ability on analysis and design of practical industrial problems by use of overall engineering knowledge which has been learned in undergraduate program. Firstly, this paper provides a literature review on evaluation indices and methods related with a capstone design course. Secondly, the evaluation system for learning outcomes of capstone design course is described. The evaluation system for learning outcomes of capstone design course provided in this paper could be referred by other universities opening a capstone design course, and used to design an evaluation system for internship program or education course which is provided as an industry-academic connection program.

The ethical and civic students' education in engineering courses has been recognized as fundamental, increasing the attention being paid to this issue by several entities, authors and thinkers. As a result, multiple Portuguese higher education institutions have been introducing this issue in the curricula of engineering courses. Are various the authors who hold that higher education is only complete when the student, in addition to acquiring the technical know-how of their area of knowledge, knows how to use them wisely, which requires to be provided with values and skills of ethical and civic analysis. Taking into account the role of engineering in society, and the broad field of its intervention that interferes with multiple dimensions of human existence and sustainability, it is imperative to consider the consequences of their actions (positive, negative and even dangerous). Therefore, the various professional organizations in this area have come to recognize the need and importance of ethical, deontological and civic education of engineering students. The study presented here aimed to know how the Portuguese higher education institutions, incorporate in the power engineering curriculum the ethical and civic education of their students. The study covers all public institutions of higher education that have engineering courses, representing 28 institutions (13 universities and 15 polytechnics). The used methodology was the official curricula collection and analysis in the various engineering courses, with the objective of identifying the type of ethical, moral, deontological or civic students' education. From the conclusions should be noted that only 11.54% of the power engineering courses include in their curriculum some curricular unit with objectives within the ethical, moral, deontological or civic education. This value is well below the national average of engineering courses taught in Portuguese higher education institutions, of which 29.3% of engineering courses include this educational component in their curricula. All of power engineering courses that include ethics or civic education in it curriculum belong to universities and are integrated masters. However, even with respect to this subset (university and integrated masters), the percentage of all engineering courses that include ethics or civic education in it curriculum is 57% and of 50% in the courses (integrated master's degree) in power engineering courses. It is also worth noting that in the polytechnic institutions with engineering courses, 10% of all the courses include ethics or civic education. However, in the case of power engineering courses, none include this type of training. The data presented indicate that only one of the power engineering courses attaches great importance to ethics and civic education of their students, giving up about 83 hours of learning in this training component (it was considered that 1ECTS is equivalent to about 30 work hours).

In non-engineering departments such as cosmetology as well, capstone design has been operated as an educational program and evaluation method, generating some positive educational effects. To examine the adoption of capstone design among domestic cosmetology-related college curriculums, this study investigated the total number of credits granted, distribution of academic departments by school, supporting units within academic departments and schools and receipt of government subsidy from the Ministry of Education, and the results found the followings: In 2018, a total of 3,590 students from 31 departments under school of natural sciences and 22 departments under school of art and physical education completed cosmetology-related capstone design courses. In average, each student was assisted by KRW 90,532. The supporting units were operated in cooperation with office of academic affairs (23 colleges), academia-industry cooperation foundation (21 colleges) and strategic support center for government-funded projects (8 colleges). The course titles differed by college. In fact, new and unique capstone design course titles have been used by academic major. It is anticipated that the study results would be available as basic data needed to enhance educational effects for applying capstone design courses and planning government-funded projects, search new items and improve their utilization.

The capstone course in Mechanical engineering at North Carolina A&T State University (NCA&TSU) is divided into two semesters. Team design projects begin in the fall semester and continued during the following spring semester. North Carolina State University, we, like virtually all other engineering programs, require a capstone course involving a major design project. This year a team of four mechanical engineering students and two electrical engineering students has decided to design and build a fuel efficient hydrogen fuel cell vehicle to compete in the 2009 Shell Eco-Marathon. The competition is designed to provide engineering students with a real life design experience. The objective of the competition is to encourage innovation and foster the development of sustainable mobility. Participants can design a vehicle for the Prototype Group or the Urban Concept Group. The Prototype Group allows maximum technical creativity, while imposing minimum design restrictions. The Urban Concept Group is closer to actual road going vehicles and addresses current transportation requirements. Both groups must meet the design criteria and meet safety standards provided by the 2009 Shell Eco-Marathon Official Rules. Participants must also select from a list of Shell approved energy sources to power their vehicles. The list includes both traditional fuels and alternative fuels. The main objective of the competition is maximum fuel efficiency. This year NCA&T Shell Eco-Marathon team has decided to enter the Prototype Group and has selected Hydrogen as the energy source. Our team placed in the third place in the hydrogen fuel cell prototype group. The completion of the Shell Eco-Marathon design project will serves as a valuable learning experience, while demonstrating the technical abilities of the students.