Multidisciplinary Capstone Research Articles

Improving the Delivery System for Teaching the Project Planning and Feasibility/Site Development Course to Building Construction Undergraduate Students and Real Estate Graduate Students

The Project Planning and Feasibility/Site Development course in the Building Construction program includes the nomenclature and process of developing residential real property. This multidisciplinary capstone course covers material related to market study, site selection and site analysis, project feasibility analysis, site design, design of houses, estimating, scheduling, financing, and project closeout. By completing this course, students get an overall understanding of the land development process. This article explains a delivery system used by a new instructor of the existing course. The course methodology encourages students to develop self-learning, critical thinking, communication skills, and teamwork abilities. The course overview, objectives, methods, (such as lectures, guest speakers, videos/films, a semester capstone project, field trips), and the instructor assessment of students are presented. The students' evaluations of the course delivery system are also provided.

The use of LabVIEW and data acquisition unit to monitor and control a bench‐top air‐to‐water heat pump

AbstractA bench‐top air‐to‐water heat pump was designed, developed, and constructed by a multidisciplinary capstone senior design team. This experimental apparatus is currently being used to demonstrate to undergraduate students some thermodynamics and heat transfer concepts and principles. A PC‐based control system which consists of LabVIEW and data acquisition (DAQ) unit is employed to monitor and control this experimental laboratory apparatus. This paper provides details about the integration of the electrical/electronic component and the control system. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 16: 83–91, 2008; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com); DOI 10.1002/cae.20122

Breaking barriers

The purpose of this paper is threefold. We summarize our experiences in building a multi-disciplinary capstone information design course that included faculty, staff, and students from art, computer science, business, communications, sociology, music, philosophy, mathematics, and education. We discuss ways in which findings from this course have impacted our programs in the foundation studies of drawing and design. Finally, we provide specific examples of projects and best practices advice for coping with the challenges of working in a multi-disciplinary atmosphere. Our best practices advice extends to developing an information design program that is fully integrated into a larger art and design curriculum and the greater university.