Undergraduate Capstone Projects Research Articles

Undergraduate Capstone Projects in Information Technology Course: Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Practical Skills

Undergraduate Capstone Projects in Information Technology Course: Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Practical Skills

Undergraduate capstone projects in information technology course: bridging the gap between theory and practical skills

Undergraduate capstone projects in information technology course: bridging the gap between theory and practical skills

Enhancing graduate, undergraduate, and vocational school education with research and development internships and capstone projects

The Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) and Advanced Technology and Manufacturing Center (ATMC) of UMass Dartmouth provides a facility for collaboration with industry. Local businesses provide internships, research opportunities, and specialized training in acoustics that enhance student growth and practical learning. The College of Engineering benefits from the industrial sponsorship for undergraduate capstone projects as well as graduate research. Students benefit from practical training and earning money for tuition and potential post-graduation employment. This tradition has grown over decades with the maturation of facilities for advancement in engineering and underwater acoustics. This presentation will present some student focused success stories within the area of engineering acoustics and transduction.

Structured Approach to Enhance the Quality of Undergraduate Capstone Project: A Case Study

The capstone project course has been considered as a commanding student-centered learning activity designed to provide an opportunity to an undergraduate student to solve critical real-life problems by applying the technical and soft skills acquired. A major objective of the capstone project is to apply real-life engineering practices to fulfill customer needs. This paper outline the challenges and best practices learned in the development and implementation of the open-ended undergraduate capstone project with the intention to enhance the quality and learning outcomes. In order to enhance the quality of the capstone project, various strategies such as group formation, student evaluation, sourcing student projects, project plan, project space, project funding, and support for patent and paper publications have been discussed also. The capstone project is offered in the fourth year of B. Tech. mechanical engineering program and it consists of two modules; Phase I and Phase II. Around 72 students and 18 supervisors were involved in the activity for the entire academic year. The student learning outcomes were measured using the commercial software and observed that all the learning outcomes have been attained more than 75% and students have developed very good projects in a team by applying technical knowledge and soft skills learned in the program.

Moving Phones Tick Slower: Creating an Android App to Demonstrate Time Dilation

Smartphones and tablets are packed with sensors that allow us to take experimental data, essentially making them mobile physics labs. Apps exist that make it easy to capture and analyze data from these sensors, allowing users to study diverse phenomena such as free fall acceleration, the speed of sound, radioactivity, and many others. Commonly, the use of apps in the physics classroom focuses on existing apps rather than on the creation of apps themselves. This is for a good reason-writing an app usually requires advanced knowledge of programming languages and experience with app design. These skills are generally regarded as beyond the typical physics student. However, there are app development environments, such as MIT App Inventor 2 for Android, which make the process of creating an app and utilizing the sensors much more accessible to students. Putting the ability to create and configure apps within the reach of students can also help integrate computation into the curriculum. In this article, we discuss our creation of an Android app, Time Dilation Calculator, done as part of a senior undergraduate capstone project, which uses App Inventor and a mobile device's global positioning system (GPS) receiver to calculate the time dilation effect of special relativity.

Approach to designing a solar concentrator for small-scale remote power application

A small-scale concentrated solar power (CSP) unit was designed to provide electricity and hot water using an organic Rankine cycle (ORC) for Egypt as part of an undergraduate capstone project. The system was designed for a target power output of 3 kW. It uses parabolic troughs to heat ethylene glycol used as the heat transfer fluid, which absorbs heat in the trough collector and transfers it to the working fluid through a heat exchanger. The system consists of 9 parabolic troughs and a total aperture area of 67 m2, providing the required 3 kW of energy to the ORC. One parabolic trough was manufactured to test its thermal efficiency according to ASHRAE standard 93-2003 [Methods of Testing to Determine the Thermal Performance of Solar Collectors (ASHRAE, Inc., 1791 Tullie Circle, NE, Atlanta, GA 30329, 2003)] and compared it to its calculated value. A simple microcontroller-based system was used to track the sun.

Administration and management of undergraduate capstone projects in joint degree technology programmes

Managing undergraduate capstone projects is a specialised task which depends on the nature of programmes, availability of resources, inputs and the expected outcomes. Technology programmes are different from conventional engineering programmes and hence the training in technology capstone projects should be aligned with the programme objectives and expectations. This paper describes an effective policy framework and administrative process for managing the capstone projects in typical joint technology degree programmes in Trinidad and Tobago. Uniqueness of technology capstone projects and their distinct inputs and expected outcomes are illustrated. Detailed management process, assessment criteria and the experiences gained so far are presented. Few technology projects of these programmes under this framework are briefly described.