By Ronald A. L. Rorrer, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center

Are you preparing to begin your capstone design project?  Have you already started and have some questions about the process?  Professor Ronald Rorrer of the University of Colorado provides useful information and countless tips on embarking of this endeavor!

If you are a junior or a senior preparing to take the capstone design sequence in mechanical engineering, you are preparing for the Olympics! For a mechanical engineering student the crowning experience of your undergraduate education is the Capstone Design Project (also known as the Senior Design Project).  Its success is not just dependent upon you, but your entire team of fellow students - and you may not get to pick this team or choose the project that will define your senior year, if not your undergraduate experience.

Let’s try to capture the essence of completing this or any significant task.  Bud Greenspan, the Olympic documentarian, was asked to name the greatest moment of Olympic sports.  He chose the story of the Tanzanian marathon runner, John Stephen Ahkwari, at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.  Ahkwari finished the race approximately 1½ hours after the first place winner.  During the course of the race, Ahkwari had fallen,  bloodied his leg, and was limping by the end of the race.  By the time Ahkwari crossed the finish line, Olympic officials had begun to to close the track in order to continue with the other track and field events.  Bud asked John why he didn’t just stop.  John replied “You don’t understand, my country did not send me 5,000 miles to start a race, they sent me to finish it.” 

The senior design project has many of the same elements as a marathon.  At first, the task at hand is so great that is seems insurmountable and the end seems very distant. Rarely in a marathon race, however, will you make a wrong turn and have to back track!

Expectations
Design classes for the capstone project may be run rather loosely.  Anticipate spending approximately 250-500 hours on your project. You should meet with your team in class 2-3 times per week.  Also plan to meet with your team outside of class to work on the project..

Project Selection
There are a myriad of projects to select.  You may consider a project that is an international design competition sponsored by one of the professional societies such as ASME, SAE, ASHRAE, IEEE, or the like.  For assistance on choosing and implementing a project, check out the following ASME’s Professional Practice Curriculum Modules:

• Conceptual design
• Analytical design
• Parametric design (student edition is available) 

Competitions offer the most intense learning opportunity for students.  You are likely to learn more about design and engineering during the few days of a competition than you have learned in your entire undergraduate experience.  You will probably have an opportunity to see design concepts that your team rejected as unfeasible working flawlessly.  As an individual, you will see ideas that you tried to foist off on your team fail miserably. 

Problems
A major problem tends to be project faculty advisors who view you as helping them to compete with the other faculty both within the department and around the nation for national competition projects.  If you find yourself in this situation, just remember that the reason you are doing this is to get a final grade to graduate.  So just do your best.  

Another problem that can occur is when your department works with local companies on projects.  This can be a great opportunity to work with a local company on an industrial project and gain valuable experience and potential employment contacts.  However, this can often be a way for a company to have work performed below market rates (regardless of good intentions) and for your department to indenture you to these companies for its own benefit.  For this reason, there are some schools that refuse to accommodate industrial projects.  Many schools handle this situation reasonably well.  If you are involved in a project where this is not handled well, speak to your advisor.  They can often provide useful tips for navigating difficult situations.  You can also check out ASME’s new Communities of Practice website.  You may find other students or former student who have been in this situation and can offer help.

Another problem that can occur is when the senior project becomes focused on the product and not the educational process.  Much like John Ahkwari, it is expected that you complete the project –but also remember,  it is that  how you run the race is just as important.

Design projects are open-ended problems.  Unlike closed-ended problems that typically only have one solution, open-ended problems have one or more solutions.  In general, engineers by nature are convergent thinkers.  Artists, by comparison, are divergent thinkers.  The problem relative to design projects is that convergent thinkers struggle with diverging and the divergent thinkers struggle with converging.  A successful design project requires both.  Very few engineers do both of these things well.

Before you become a senior you should interview the current (or past) crop of seniors about their experiences in senior design, regarding project selection, project advisors, and course expectations.

Process
What are you supposed to get out of a senior project?  In the capstone design courses you are supposed to be capable of utilizing all of the courses that you have taken previously or currently in the handling of a complex open-ended problem. 

Teamwork
One of the other major issues is teamwork.  A common complaint from teams is that the contribution of all members is not equal.  If there are 7 members on a team, only 3-4 will really be carrying the load, if there are 10 it will only be 5-6, 25+ it will be 6-12, so on and so forth.  Since this class is largely based upon a group project your and your team’s grades are dependent on each other.  This can result in conflict.  You have three options as an individual.  The options are:

1. Accept the grade on the group project determined by the effort of you and your comrades.
2. Monitor the work of your comrades and ensure that they will help you get the grade you desire.
3. Do all the work that your comrades are not doing to ensure the grade you desire.

Many students operate in option 1 and are disappointed with their final grade.  I came up with this list after a 4.0 student left senior design without her 4.0 and worse, a complete lack of understanding of how it happened.

Writing Skills
The next most important issue is development of your writing and editing skills.  In the process of creating the team report, you will have to edit the work of others for clarity and readability, which is a skill worth acquiring early. 

Presentation Skills
After writing, the development of presentation skills is next in importance.  My personal theory is that it typically takes 5-10 public speaking attempts before you find your vocal cords.  My first talk, I read my slides.  For my second presentation, I was at a conference with approximately  250 people.  I was so nervous that my mouth dehydrated and my tongue started sticking to the roof of my mouth.  It does take practice to be a good presenter.

Design (research or laboratory) notebooks should be required in your capstone design sequence.  Why are you supposed to keep the notebook?  The bound notebook with sequentially numbered pages has historically been used to establish the necessary documentation of dated ideas for the intellectual property rights, most significantly patents.

Despite all of the potential issues, the capstone design sequence is really not that complex.  The general course flow and deliverables are as follows:

1. Brainstorming
2. Proposal
3. Time-line
4. Progress Report
5. Progress Report
6. Mid-Term Report and Presentation
7. Progress Report
8. Progress Report
9. Final Report and Presentation

Success In National Competitions
Success in national design competitions is the result of a few seemingly obvious aspects of the project.  First is the realistic selection of a project.  That is dependent primarily on the resources of your teammates and financial support available.   Table 1 shows a matrix giving the average cost of a project and the typical number of team members required.  For example when student groups at our school were initially competing in the ASME HPV Challenge  (www.asme.org/hpv), the groups chose to compete in the practical vehicle event.  While the speed and endurance events are far appealing, it was certainly easier to be competitive in the practical event with 4-6 team members and a budget of $3000. 

Table 1.  Project Resource Matrix
	Project Cost	Travel and Lodging	Typical Number of Team mates
Solar Ray			20-30
Formula SAE	$30,000	$5000	10-25
Mini-Baja	$10,000	$3000	7-20
ASME HPV	$1,500	$1500/ 4 team members	4-20

The amount of time involvement on one of these projects can be enormous.  From a course grading point of view, you can only be expected to work on your project during the 16-week semester. Keep in mind, however, that this amount of time is not enough to be competitive nationally. 

Nationally competitive design teams possess a few common traits.  There are typically one or more obsessive personality types that are the mainstays of the project.  It doesn’t hurt to have a writer/editor in addition to a CAD jockey within the mix.  For these projects, fall, Thanksgiving, winter, and spring breaks are just opportunities to spend more time on the project.  Final Exam weeks will often fall into this category.

While in a typical capstone design sequence the project will be designed in the fall semester and built in the spring semester, a competitive team will design in the fall to meet the requirements of the class, and redesign over winter break, learning from the in-class iteration what should have actually been done the first time.

The “trick” to being successful in a national competition is the utmost in simplicity.  Follow the rules.  Design competitions are often  won (or lost) based upon the design report.  Not only must you have all of the required sections, you must technically prove the safety and soundness of your design.  The purpose of a student design competition is the design, not just the performance!

Summary
Success in the senior design project is based upon understanding the demands of the project.  Many companies will hire you based upon your performance on the senior design project.  In summary, understand the stated expectations and meet them.