Creating a successful senior design project: lessons learned across ten years of teaching

Benjamin Cromey; Ian Carr; Michael Nofziger

doi:10.1117/12.3025646

1 October 2024 Creating a successful senior design project: lessons learned across ten years of teaching

Benjamin Cromey, Ian Carr, Michael Nofziger

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Proceedings Volume 13128, Optics Education and Outreach VIII; 131280C (2024) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3025646
Event: Optical Engineering + Applications, 2024, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

Interdisciplinary capstone design projects are a required part of many of the engineering programs across the US and have been proven to be highly impactful for preparing students for industry. The University of Arizona College of Engineering program places five to six students on a team sponsored predominantly by industry partners. Over the course of the academic year, students work to meet the requirements of the industry sponsor and ultimately present their results at a celebratory event called Design Day. The authors have been students, mentors, and now sponsors of projects through BAE Systems (formerly Ball Aerospace). This paper describes our general philosophy to designing a great project that will challenge and grow the students on the team and give them a taste of what work at our company is like. The paper will give several example projects across the past years to showcase what went well and what can be improved, as well as summarizing general roadblocks students consistently experience for other mentors to be aware of.

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(2024) Published by SPIE. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

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Benjamin Cromey, Ian Carr, and Michael Nofziger "Creating a successful senior design project: lessons learned across ten years of teaching", Proc. SPIE 13128, Optics Education and Outreach VIII, 131280C (1 October 2024); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3025646

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