CCSU Moonbuggy-2 Senior Capstone Design Project, as a Road Map to the Successful Engineering Career and Effective Assessment

摘要

The goals of this paper are to: relate the experience of Central Connecticut State University's (CCSU) 3rd year of using the NASA Great Moonbuggy Race Program as a capstone design project, describe the key steps of the project accomplishment, illuminate its impact on students long term career objectives, and show how to use such a comprehensive design experience as an assessment tool addressing most ABET criterion through a-k program learning outcomes. The first offering of this project as a senior capstone project was in 2008. During spring 2008 and 2008/09 academic year the first CCSU Moonbuggy vehicle was designed, fabricated, assembled, and tested on the grounds of NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in April 2009. The findings from spring 2008 and 2008/09 academic years were presented at the 47th and 48th AIAA Aerospace Science Meeting (Orlando, FL). During the 2009/10 academic year senior ME students designed, fabricated, assembled, and tested the next generation of Moonbuggy vehicle (Moonbuggy-2) and successfully participated in the 17th Annual Great Moonbuggy Race. The third year experience with the project confirmed that it is very suitable to engineering students for: offering ample opportunities to apply their knowledge gained throughout their course of study; improving their analytical abilities; developing their design, organizational, and project management skills; practicing working in multi-disciplinary teams; solving cutting-edge real-world engineering design challengers, paving the way to the transition to work force and enhancing their chances of success as practicing engineers.