MNC-Sponsored Multidisciplinary Industrial-Strength Capstone Design Projects in China

Author(s):  
Vincent Chang

With a growing need to reform Chinese higher engineering education, University of Michigan—Shanghai Jiao Tong University Joint Institute (JI) initiated multinational corporation-sponsored industrial-strength Capstone Design Projects (CDP) in 2011. Since 2011, JI has developed 96 corporate-sponsored CDPs since its inception, which include multinational corporation sponsors such as Covidien, Dover, GE, HP, Intel, NI, Philips, and Siemens. Of these projects, healthcare accounts for 27%, energy 24%, internet technology (IT) 22%, electronics 16%, and other industries 11%. This portfolio reflects the trends and needs in the industry, which provides opportunities for engineering students to develop their careers. An accumulated 480 JI students have been teamed up based on their individual backgrounds, specifically electrical engineering, computer engineering, computer science, mechanical engineering, and biomedical engineering. The corporate-sponsored rate grew from 0% in 2010 to 86% in 2014.

Author(s):  
Douglas V. Gallagher ◽  
Ronald A. L. Rorrer

At the University Colorado Denver, a manufacturing process design course was specifically created to raise the level of the as constructed senior design projects in the department. The manufacturing process design course creates a feed forward loop into the senior design course, while the senior design course generates a feedback loop into the process design course. Every student and student project has the opportunity to utilize CNC mills and lathes where appropriate. Specific emphasis is placed upon the interfaces from solid models to CAM models and subsequently the interface from CAM models to the machine tool. Often the construction of many senior design projects approaches the level of blacksmithing due to time constraints and lack of fabrication background. Obviously, most engineering students have neither the time nor the ability to become expert fabricators. However, the wide incorporation of CNC machining in the program allows, an opportunity to not only raise the quality of their prototypes, but also to immerse in the hands on experience of living with the ramifications of their own design decisions in manufacturing. Additionally, some of the art of fabrication is turned into the science of fabrication. The focus of this paper will be primarily on examining the effect of formal incorporation of the manufacturing process in the capstone design course.


Author(s):  
Carla Barros ◽  
Celina P. Leão ◽  
Filipe Pereira ◽  
Filomena Soares ◽  
José Machado ◽  
...  

A great number of remote laboratories has been implemented in the engineering field. Nevertheless, there are few approaching the bioengineering area. The present paper will describe not only an innovative remote laboratory developed for biomedical engineering education, but also its assessment based on the target public’s feedback. The remote laboratory developed by the research team intends to provide the physiological signals remote acquisition from human body, supported by theory to a greater understanding of learned concepts. This tool is geared towards the undergraduate biomedical engineering students. Therefore, a sample of twelve students took part in a limited study conducted to quantitatively and qualitatively assess the remote laboratory. The study was undertaken using two questionnaires, one distributed before and other after the performance of a remote experiment. Moreover, the information about the learning style/method, employed by each student, was collected in order to devise strategies for future applications development and to make the remote laboratory suitable for the target public.


Author(s):  
Lara A. Thompson ◽  
Jiajun Xu ◽  
Devdas Shetty

In order to meet the increasing societal and market demand for a diverse and well-trained Biomedical Engineering (BME) workforce, the University of the District of Columbia (UDC), the nation’s only urban land-grant institution, the District of Columbia’s only public institution of higher education, and a historically black college and university (HBCU), nurtures BME activities focused on exposure, training and cultivation through research and experiential learning. Undergraduate design projects and research-based learning opportunities in BME are key program ingredients. This paper presents the former (i.e., three, BME-related undergraduate senior Capstone Design projects that target devices to aid patient immobility) namely, the design of: 1) an ankle foot orthosis, 2) an upperlimb robotic hand prosthetic, and 3) a chairless chair lower limb exoskeleton. A current focus of the UDC BME program is Rehabilitation Engineering (i.e., interventions and devices aimed at aiding those with mobility impairments). We briefly discuss the necessity for rehabilitation-focused, biomedical-related undergraduate experiences and training for underrepresented minority students at UDC, in particular, undergraduate engineering education through multidisciplinary BME projects that foster hands-on creativity towards innovative designs. In addition to critical design experiences and undergraduate training in BME, devices may have the potential to develop into new commercial technologies and/or research projects that will aid and enhance the quality life of individuals suffering from a wide-range of mobility-related issues.


Author(s):  
Leonard M. Lye ◽  
Stephen E. Bruneau

Over the last few decades, the idea that the engineering profession should have a significant input to engineering education has taken a stronghold throughout the world. This is still true today. At Memorial University of Newfoundland, professional contacts were deliberately built into the undergraduate program when it was developed in 1969. First, the program would run on the cooperative model whereby students alternate between industry and university and second, the traditional final-year individual theses would be discarded in favour of team-oriented comprehensive capstone design projects supplied by industry and supervised by professional engineers from industry and academia. Both aspects of the program require considerable interaction between students and faculty on one hand and the practicing engineering community on the other. This has considerably strengthened the ties between industry and academia and has given the students an appreciation of the significance of their work to society in which they live. This paper will highlight some of Memorial’s experiences with industry-based capstone design projects over the last 40 years.


Author(s):  
Farrah Fayyaz

There is a growing trend in engineering education to increase the societal awareness among theengineering graduates, so that the engineering solutions proposed by the engineers are more sustainable. To achieve this, one of the efforts in Concordia University is to ask capstone students to discuss and implement (wherever possible) ethical, legal, social, environmental, and entrepreneurial aspects of their capstone design. Students are given two lectures during the capstone year which provides them with prompts to identify and think beyond their personal biases and perceptions of the society. At the end of the term, each capstone team is asked to define engineering failure. The aim for this is for graduating students to have a well thought of idea of the engineering design failure before they enter the workplace. This article explains the two phases (lectures) of the capstone lectures related to the ethical, legal, societal, environmental, and entrepreneurial aspects of an engineering design. Additionally, the article aims to analyze the definitions of engineering failure submitted by the engineering students at the end of the capstone year to identify keywords and terms that the graduating engineering students attribute to success and failure of an engineering design. The objective of the paper is to open the discussion among engineering educators for incorporating ideas in their courses that can improve engineering students’ understanding of a sustainable design and assess the success of these strategies.


Author(s):  
Gabrielle Lam

A new first-year biomedical engineering laboratory course was created using a problem-based learning approach. Centered on four semi-structured design projects and experiments, the laboratory course was designed to facilitate meaningful experiential learning. Preliminary analyses of survey results suggest that the semi-structured nature of lab activities is viewed both positively and negatively by students, depending on their perception of preparedness for the project. Its correlation with student performance will be better understood with thorough study of other components of survey results.


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