A Web-based system for undergraduate capstone design projects

摘要

A Change Is Needed: The Acerediting Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET) in the United States requires a major design experience of our undergraduate students. This is a Capstone design project lasting at least one semester (15 weeks) or two quarters (20 weeks). In the past we have a required only a one quarter (10 weeks) capstone design activity. These projects typically produced a 'paper design' with no prototype verification of concept and product performance. A New Approach: Starting with 1999/2000 academic years we linked a two course sequence (ME 395 Introduction to Design and ME 495 Capstone Design) and made them both project based. Industrial clients would typically sponsor the projects. The course material now becomes the design project activities and tasks rather than chapters in a textbook. Students were given instructions in topical issues with textbook references on an as needed basis' [1.2] and were also required, on their own, to seek information in other sources such as the Engineering Library and other design related sources (vendor literature, patents etc.) relevant to their specific project needs. While this has shifted the learning responsibility more to the students it also represents a change and a challenge in how we, as instructors, manage the design activity. Design Management: Design education and design project execution requires teamwork and collaborative efforts among all stakeholders to be successful. In an academic setting this has typically been achieved by frequent 'face-to-face' meetings between the student design team, faculty consultants, and the project sponsors. Modern technology, via the Internet, has made the collaborative team efforts independent of the constraints of common meeting times and the need for graphical collocation.