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ASEE 2006 Annual Conference, Chicago, Ill 2006-345

Engineering Technology Division

A Description of an Integrated Capstone Senior Design Course with Teams of Mechanical, Electrical and Computer Engineering Technology Students Francis A. Di Bella, PE fdibella@coe.neu.edu (617-373-5240) Director, School of Engineering Technology, Principal Course Instructor and Program Coordinator for Mechanical Engineering Technology Randy August, Asst. Prof. Computer Engineering Technology Joel Weinstein, Program Coordinator Computer Engineering Technology Jerry Tapper, Acting Program Coordinator Electrical Engineering Technology Northeastern University, Boston, MA

ABSTRACT The capstone Senior Design course is arguably the most relevant and essential engineering course that can be offered to the engineering technology student. The Capstone course, unlike any other engineering technology course, provides pedagogical coverage of most if not all of the ‘a through k’ ABET student criteria. Often the Capstone Design course requires that teams of students in a single academic discipline work together to produce and an engineering analysis and design of a product or project. A more “real-world” approach to the Capstone Design course has been introduced at Northeastern University’s School of Engineering Technology and has been proven successful, according to student and industrial advisor/judges assessments. The NU SET Capstone course is conducted by interdisciplinary teams of mechanical, electrical and computer engineering technology students (with an occasional integration of a team of business students), all working together as a team to complete a project. This paper will discuss the structure of this course, the successes that must be encouraged and the pit falls that must be avoided if this unique integration of engineering technology students is to be implemented in an ET curriculum.

Background and Introduction Northeastern University is completing its third year in implementing a change from the Quarter to the Semester academic plan. The decision to change from a Quarter system to a Semester plan was driven, in a strong way, by the cooperative education division of the University who responded to their cooperative education employers who had requested that the students spend more time-at least six months-in a full time, engineering work environment. The School of Engineering Technology took full advantage of this academic change to add more technical electives, and more laboratory sessions for some courses as well as to revamp the course content of many other of its existing courses. Among the courses that were revamped was the Introduction to Product Design and Design Laboratory courses.

One of the major changes was to eliminate these two courses, one of which was offered only to mechanical engineering technology seniors. These courses were replaced with two courses that are offered to all seniors and that provided more content to all of the

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Weinstein, J., & August, R., & Dow, L., & Tapper, J., & Di Bella, F. (2006, June), A Description Of An Integrated Capstone Project Team With Electrical, Mechanical And Computer Engineering Technology Students Paper presented at 2006 Annual Conference & Exposition, Chicago, Illinois. 10.18260/1-2--197