Multidisciplinary Capstone Research Articles

Multidisciplinary Capstone Senior Design Projects: A Comparative Analysis of Industry–Sponsored and Faculty–Sponsored Projects Using Comprehensive Performance Metrics

Engineering education has continually evolved to embrace Project–Based Learning (PBL), a dynamic classroom approach emphasizing learning through engagement in real–world projects. The study conducts a comparative analysis of multidisciplinary Capstone Senior Design Projects across Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Computer Science at Texas A&M University at Texarkana. The research emphasizes understanding the dynamics of student collaboration within these disciplines and scrutinizes the impact of industry and faculty sponsorship on these projects. The methodology involves a comprehensive comparative analysis, employing diverse performance metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of different sponsorship models. This approach aims to uncover the influence of these models on project outcomes and students’ educational experiences. The results reveal notable differences between industry–sponsored and faculty–sponsored projects. Industry sponsorship leads to higher performance in overall project execution and professional skills development. In contrast, faculty–sponsored projects are more effective in nurturing teamwork and communication abilities among students. The findings suggest that each sponsorship type presents unique benefits and challenges. Industry–sponsored projects provide valuable hands–on problem–solving experience, though they may suffer from inconsistencies in mentorship and varying expectations. Faculty–sponsored projects offer a more stable and consistent educational environment but might lag slightly in performance metrics. Integrating elements from both sponsorship models could provide students with a more balanced and enriching learning experience.

Discovering Concept-Space to Improve Student Experience and Teaching in Design Projects

Design is an art that combines technical challenges, learning and creativity. The activity is challenging for many students, who struggle to frame and understand the complexity of their project. To add to the challenge, the work done and the vision in the team is only partially shared. Unsurprisingly, it is hard to teach. This paper presents concept-space; a novel way to build and organize design information, from problem understanding to solution elaboration and validation. It is conceived as both an efficient workspace and a graphical communication medium to help process the complex and fuzzy nature of design. This study uses a SoTL approach to evaluate concept-space when used in multidisciplinary capstone design projects. Final questionnaires and focus groups with 26 students and 6 teachers were used to collect data after using concept-space for a full semester. The study provides strong support that concept-space is a serious asset to help students learn design and to help teachers teach design.

치매 대상자 및 가족 케어를 위한 캡스톤 디자인 기반 보건 ․ 복지 융복합 교과목 개발*

The purpose of this study is to develop the captone design based- multidisciplinary curriculum, for the cooperative intervention and management of nursing and social welfare would be effective for helping people with dementia and their families in the community and solving their problems. To accomplish the above-mentioned purpose, the hybrid model was partially applied. The characteristics of dementia were discovered through the literature research and analysis, and the datum about the problems of people with dementia and their caregivers were gathered and analysed through the interview with a professional worker in a nursing home. As a result, the main purposes of the capstone design curriculum and the core competencies which the multidisciplinary professionals in dementia areas should have were derived, and based on this, the multidisciplinary capstone design curriculum for people with dementia and their families was developed. This curriculum would be helpful to vitalize the field-based lesson, to link actively classes with the community agencies, and to serve families with dementia patients in the community. In addition, the outputs which students will produce by this curriculum would help with students’ portfolio for their employment. Finnish case will be a positive model for solving the social integration problems facing Korean society.

Open Water Flume for Fluid Mechanics Lab

Open water flume tanks with closed-loop circulation driven by centrifugal pumps are essential for hydro experimentation in academic settings as well as research centers. The device is also attractive due to its versatility and easy-to-maintain characteristics. Nevertheless, commercial open flume systems can be expensive and become less prioritized in engineering schools. This paper describes the design and fabrication of an affordable, medium-size water flume tank, suitable for education purposes. The central piece of the system is a transparent observation chamber where fluid experiments are typically conducted and observed. The expected maximum average water speed in the observation chamber of about 60 cm per second was achieved by the inclusion of a 3 hp centrifugal pump. The size and capacity of the current design were constrained by space limitation and available funds. The educational facility was assigned as a two-semester multi-disciplinary capstone senior design project incorporating students and faculty of mechanical, electrical, and computer engineering programs in our campus. The design process provides a training platform for skills in the area of Computer Aided Designs (CAD), Finite Element Analysis (FEA), Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), manufacturing, and experimentation. The multi-disciplinary project has contributed to the improvement of soft skills, such as time management, team working, and professional presentation, of the team members. The total material cost of the facility was less than USD 6000, which includes the pump and its variable frequency driver. The project was made possible due to the generous sponsor of the Vibration Institute.

Teaching process design in a multidisciplinary capstone design course

AbstractTo increase the percentage of our graduates trained in a multidisciplinary setting, we have pooled resources from several departmental capstone design courses to create a common multidisciplinary course with a novel structure. The new course consists of multiple sections, one for each of the project types previously offered in the departmental courses. The new teaching platform has increased the choice of capstone design projects available to students and provides the flexibility to form multidisciplinary as well as mono‐disciplinary teams of students depending on the needs of the projects. In the process design section of the course, teams of four or five students work on design projects sponsored by industry and are co‐mentored by a practicing engineer and a faculty member. Seven evenly spaced milestones are used to pace students, guide mentors, and facilitate the progressive assembly of a high‐quality final report. Peer evaluations are also used to improve team dynamics and are combined with mentor ratings to derive individual grades from the assessment of team deliverables. The normalized peer ratings of effective team members follow a normal distribution with a mean of unity and a SD of 0.04, whereas the ratings of ineffective members fall below the distribution. Our collaborative approach for teaching process design provides a motivating educational experience to students and each of the course learning outcomes was achieved by over 95% of the students during the first two offerings of the course.

Engineering Design: An Organic Approach to Solving Complex Problems in the Modern World

While more and more undergraduate engineering programs are moving toward a multi-disciplinary capstone experience, there remains a need for a suitable textbook. The present text seeks to meet that nee

A Multidisciplinary Capstone Design Project to Satisfy ABET Student Outcomes

This paper presents a multidisciplinary open-ended capstone design project where students designed, built, and test drove a Formula Society of Automatic Engineers (FSAE) electric vehicle. The capstone team included students from computer, electrical, and mechanical engineering programs. Each student worked in on a subteam, namely, mechanical design, drivetrain, supervisory control and data acquisition, and battery management system. A thorough description of each subsystem is provided herein. Software architecture, system integration, and field test results are also reviewed. Team organization, faculty and industry involvement, and assessment of student outcomes are provided. This paper details the approach of building a bridge between academia and engineering practices. This paper also documents a process where undergraduate students research and master multiple technology areas and then apply them to the project’s focus. ABET student outcomes 1–7 were used to design and assess the course. Peer-to-peer rating and ranking are presented as an assessment tool for the multidisciplinary nature of the project.

Adapting waterfall design to an eight-month capstone course

York University’s multi-disciplinary capstone design class was established “to include significant elements of design and implementation” in such as manner as to “resemble engineering projects in practice.” The class was restructured in summer 2016 to coincide with the introduction of fourth-year cohorts in both the Electrical and Mechanical programs. The changes were designed to more closely emulate an industry-standard approach. Choosing an industrially-accepted design methodology would provide a good framework for the project design and implementation and would be motivational to the students as they transitioned from university to professional life. In parallel, the course directors used a narrative structure, the Hero’s journey, to help students identify their pathways through capstone and to tell their capstone stories after the experience.We adapted the gating reviews for the Waterfall model often used in large government contracts. At the start of the project, students are provided a governing document (similar to a contract). Gate reviews are held at preliminary and critical design stages, test readiness and post-test review and final delivery. Every deliverable requires team reflection, similar to bidder self-evaluations on government contracts. The project concludes with an open house, similar to a product release, for students to present their projects and processes to stakeholders and the general public.This paper presents the results of the first two years of the newly revised capstone, using the Hero’s Journey metaphor and the waterfall model.

Allocating Students to Multidisciplinary Capstone Projects Using Discrete Optimization

We discuss an allocation mechanism of capstone projects to senior-year undergraduate students, which the recently established Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) has implemented. A distinguishing feature of these projects is that they are multidisciplinary ; each project must involve students from at least two disciplines. This is an instance of a bipartite many-to-one matching problem with one-sided preferences and with additional lower and upper bounds on the number of students from the disciplines that must be matched to projects. This leads to challenges in applying many existing algorithms. We propose the use of discrete optimization to find an allocation that considers both efficiency and fairness. This provides flexibility in incorporating side constraints, which are often introduced in the final project allocation using inputs from the various stakeholders. Over a three-year period from 2015 to 2017, the average rank of the project allocated to the student is roughly halfway between their top two choices, with around 78 percent of the students assigned to projects in their top-three choices. We discuss practical design and optimization issues that arise in developing such an allocation.

A Qualitative Study of Team Level Factors Affecting Innovation

Innovation is a necessity to embrace possibilities and face challenges and problems in our continuously changing world. Multidisciplinary capstones can be a place for students to be innovative. Students not only get a chance to work on a real project from industry, but they also work with students from different disciplines. This diversity of knowledge and perspectives can lead to team innovation. This paper explores team level factors affecting innovation in 4th year multidisciplinary capstone design at the University of Toronto. This paper is a qualitative study that explores the effect of diversity of knowledge, support for innovation from supervisor and client, team size, and team vision on innovation. Our research sheds some light on what behaviors in teams lead to innovation. Supporting and encouraging these behaviors from educational institutions provides an environment for students to be more innovative

A NOVEL PROJECT-BASED MULTIDISCIPLINARY DESIGN EXPERIENCE

This paper presents the new multidisciplinary project based course at the graduate level. We explore how this novel course has been evolved from our multidisciplinary capstone course in the undergraduate level. We also introduce a new addition to our framework for multidisciplinary project based design courses, which is the faculty expert zone. This addition will enhance the students' multidisciplinary project based experience by providing a support system for wide ranges of projects that is offered by these courses. We also investigate qualitative and quantitative feedback from our students regarding the proposed framework that reflect students’ experiences

DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A CROSS DISCIPLINE CAPSTONE DESIGN EXPERIENCE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA

One of the most effective and efficient ways for an engineering program to facilitate compliance with the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB) accreditation criteria is through capstone design projects and courses. Currently, the University of Manitoba Faculty of Engineering has several capstone design courses; however, each is independently focused on its own respective discipline. The resulting educational experience for students, though rigorous and challenging, is maintained within the boundaries of the students’ engineering discipline, thereby neglecting to provide the opportunity for students to work with people from multiple disciplines and across multiple fields. This style/mode of education, where students work in silos, arguably does not reflect real world engineering. Program representatives from the Faculty of Engineering agree. An interdisciplinary capstone course would provide a more rounded engineering education for students. Exposing students to other disciplines and facilitating their learning of the knowledge, skills and behaviours required to work in a multidisciplinary capacity will more effectively prepare students for the real world. Thus, to better comply with CEAB requirements and to increase the breadth and depth of students’ engineering education, an interdisciplinary capstone pilot course will be launched at the University of Manitoba.This paper explains how this multidisciplinary capstone pilot program has been developed, and touches on the early stages of its initiation and implementation.

WHAT CONSTITUTES A MULTIDISCIPLINARY CAPSTONE DESIGN COURSE? BEST PRACTICES, SUCCESSES AND CHALLENGES.

This paper reflects on how to practicallyachieve the necessary organizational and curricularpreconditions that allow for conducting Multi􀀀Inter􀀀andTrans – disciplinary engineering capstone designindustry􀀀sponsored projects and thereby serveengineering graduates better. The differences betweenoffering multidisciplinary and the common singledisciplinarycapstone design courses are also highlighted.Simultaneously, this paper focuses on the key challengesthat aggravate the smooth implementation of such acomplex undertaking the fundamental goal of which is tooffer a multidisciplinary team-based design project workexperience to the Students that would be mimicking asclose as possible an analogue typical industrial setting.Possible remedial measures for overcoming thesechallenges are also discussed. A new multidisciplinarycapstone design project course offered at the Faculty ofApplied Science and Engineering (FASE) at theUniversity of Toronto in the 2013/14 academic year(“APS 490Y Multidisciplinary Capstone Design”)coordinated by Prof. Kamran Behdinan served as thebasis for this work.

A Proposed New Graduate Program in Technical Product Innovation at UBC

UBC has held two NSERC Chairs in Design Engineeringthrough which we have established connections with theSauder School of Business (through our New VentureDesign program) and other engineering departments(through our multidisciplinary capstone design course).We are now planning a renewal application for ourDesign Chair that aims to extend the scope of designrelatedwork at UBC by establishing a graduate programin Technical Product Innovation (TPI) that will connectApplied Science, the Business School, Computer Scienceand Industrial Design at the Emily Carr University of Artand Design. The TPI program will offer both thesis andnon-thesis degree options at the master's level, along witha concentration certificate that will be available to non-TPI students. The curriculum will have five keycomponents: (1) a technical base in the area of thestudent's undergraduate specialization, (2) courses ininnovation theory and entrepreneurship in collaborationwith the Sauder School, (3) courses in human factorsengineering in collaboration with computer science,(4) special 'passport-style' skills-based courses inprototyping, visual communication and user evaluation incollaboration with industrial design, and (5) project andthesis options that will allow for work on industry- orentrepreneurship-based design projects. The goal of theproposed program will be to train students to take onleadership roles in product development programs in bothstartups and established companies. The TPI programwill initially focus on three key areas: medicaltechnologies, consumer products and business-to-businessproducts. It will build on two significant cross-universityinitiatives - the multi-faculty Human-ComputerInteraction interest group (hci@ubc) and the universitywideEntrepreneurship@UBC program - and will tie intorelated emerging initiatives such as the Innovation Hub atVancouver General Hospital and Wearables@UBC.

AN EXPLORATION OF COMMUNICATION AND KNOWLEDGE APPLICATION IN MULTIDISCIPLINARY UNDERGRADUATE ENGINEERING CAPSTONE DESIGN TEAMS

Multidisciplinary capstone design projectsoffer students the opportunity to solve complexengineering problems that span multiple disciplinesthrough collaborative, team-based learning. Using amixed quantitative and qualitative approach, this studyexamines student experience in a multidisciplinarycapstone design course by analyzing how disciplinaryknowledge is applied, taught, and learned among teammembers. Our preliminary findings suggest correlationsbetween open communication, sharing of disciplinaryknowledge, and the likelihood of taking design risks.Future work will further explore the reasons behind thesecorrelations.

한국다학제간 캡스톤디자인에 마이크로콘트롤러 보드의 적용

본 논문은 공주대학교 공과대학 학생들에게 다학제간 캡스톤 디자인을 운영하기 위한 모델을 제시한다. 여름방학 계절학기 기간 중에 공주대학교 공과대학에서 다학제간 캡스톤 디자인을 운영하였다. 다학제간 캡스톤 디자인에 참여한 학생들은 이전에 캡스톤 디자인 교과목을 수강하지 않은 서로 연관이 없는 5개 전공 학생들이다. 다양한 전공의 학생들에게 캡스톤 디자인작품을 완성하기 위해 센서 및 액츄에이터 등을 이용하는 아두이노 우노 마이크로 컨트롤러 제어보드를 사용하는 캡스톤 디자인 모델을 도입하였다. 만족도 평가를 통해 더 창의적이면서 현장감 있는 의미 있는 교육이 진행되었음을 알게 되었다. 이를 통해 다학제간 캡스톤 디자인 부분에서 앞으로의 가능성 있는 방향을 제시하였다. In this paper, we introduce a model of the teaching and learning method for multidisciplinary convergence capstone design at Kongju National University's Engineering Department. At Kongju national University, various capstone design works are designed and proceeded by multidisciplinary students at the summer session. The multidisciplinary approach described in this paper includes the involvement of five department's student who have not collaborated in capstone design experience. This study focuses on multidisciplinary capstone design education by using the micro controller board called Arduino Uno that consists of an assortment of sensors and actuators. The result of self-satisfaction survey was shown the meaningful teaching process for the engineering department students who could have more creative and industrial experiences. As a result, we are able to get the result of the possible directions for future technology education in the area of convergence multidisciplinary capstone design.

Creating a Marketplace for Multidisciplinary Multi-university Systems Engineering Capstone Projects

Our previous research has shown that multidisciplinary capstone programs can enhance development of systems engineering competencies. However, undergraduate engineering capstone projects typically focus on only one engineering discipline. One way to foster more collaboration between engineering departments and students is to partner with colleagues at other universities. Although this provides more challenges for students it also exposes them to a wider variety of peers.Good capstone experiences involve sponsors with real needs. Finding and engaging such sponsors takes time and effort by faculty that might be better spent on other tasks. It would be easier if a global marketplace existed for multidisciplinary engineering capstone problems and projects. A marketplace would allow sponsors to propose challenging projects that require systems thinking across multiple disciplines. It would allow students to self-organize and select projects based on their backgrounds and interests. It would also allow faculty to focus on guiding student learning rather than defining challenging capstone projects and obtaining necessary resources.This paper describes an ongoing pilot project to develop a marketplace for multidisciplinary systems engineering capstone projects. Students from six different universities have applied to projects that were posted to the marketplace website by sponsors from government and industry. Each team includes students from different disciplines and different schools. The goals of the pilot project are to determine the requirements for a global electronic marketplace and to develop guidelines for faculty, students and sponsors who would use it.

Integrating Project Management, Product Design with Industry Sponsored Projects provides Stimulating Senior Capstone Experiences

<p class="Abstract" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><em><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 9pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: 'MS Mincho'; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Abstract</span></strong><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-ascii-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-hansi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">¾</span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"> </span></span></em><strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal; layout-grid-mode: line; font-size: 9pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Many students are uncomfortable with real world engineering problems where needs and requirements must be concretely defined and the selection of design solutions is not black and white. This paper describes a two semester, multi-disciplinary senior capstone project for students from three Engineering and Technology Department programs (electrical engineering, electrical and computer engineering technology, and engineering technology) that brings together the tools of project management and the creative product development process into industry sponsored projects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>The projects are fully integrated with the Center for Rapid Product Realization with its dual goals of economic development and enhanced learning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>The stage/gate development process is used with six formal reviews covering the development of the proposal through to the fabrication and testing of the project’s output.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Over the past four years thirty five (35) projects have been undertaken with students getting an exciting authentic life experience and introducing them to the real world of engineering.</span></span></strong></p>

The influence of prior industry experience and multidisciplinary teamwork on student design learning in a capstone design course

This study compares the design process knowledge of students before and after a capstone design course. The influence of having prior industrial experience or being on a multidisciplinary capstone project on design process knowledge is also investigated. To assess design process knowledge, students critiqued a proposed design process; their responses were evaluated with a rubric that focuses on seven traits of design process knowledge. Results indicate that a capstone experience increases students' understanding of needs identification, the overall layout of a design process, and relative time allotments of different design activities. A capstone course also reduced the differences seen before this study between students with and without prior industrial experience. Students in multidisciplinary and single disciplinary capstone courses performed similarly.

Computer-controlled air-conditioning experimental apparatus

A portable experimental setup for demonstrating air-conditioning processes was designed, developed and constructed by a multidisciplinary capstone senior design team. This experimental apparatus is currently being used to demonstrate to undergraduate students air-conditioning processes such as cooling, heating, and humidification. The level of cooling, heating, or humidification is being monitored and controlled using a PC-based control system which consists of LabVIEW and data acquisition unit. This article provides details about the integration of the electrical/electronic component and the control system. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 18: 458–468, 2010; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com; DOI 10.1002/cae.20185