THE MELTING POT APPROACH TO SENIOR DESIGN Part

THE MELTING POT APPROACH TO SENIOR DESIGN Part II: ASSESSMENT AND IMPROVEMENT Michael A. Latcha, Ph. D. Subramaniam Ganesan, Ph. D. Edward Y. L. Gu, Ph. D. Richard E. Haskell, Ph. D.

The “Melting Pot” approach n n n Combine all engineering and computer science senior design courses Design groups are assigned based on major field, skills and experience Projects assigned have not been solved, or even examined in depth, by the instructors Questions are answered only with “I don’t know, let’s find out” Always culminates in a public competition

Initial Assessment Results and Improvements n n Main assessment done by “External Evaluators” Initial assessment feedback indicated a perception of lack of both difficulty and rigorous analysis (autonomous line-following vehicles) Efforts made to increase perceived difficulty of projects, increase expectation of analysis Walk a fine line between what students are able to analyze and clever design concepts

Fall 2004 Design Project § § § Design device to climb a rope to the top of the 8 -story Science and Engineering building Climb autonomously, ring a bell at the top, verbally announce height from ground every 3 meters Competition held on December 2, 2004, “rain or shine, snow or ice ”

Fall 2004 Senior Design

Winter 2005 Design Project § § Design a device to shoot 10 ½” diameter balls into a bucket, up to 10 m away. Constraints: § § Launch device must be operated wirelessly from GUI on laptop computer Shots must go over 1 m barrier Targeting done through single web cam Balls chosen randomly from 9 different materials, polypropylene - brass

Web cam targeting

Winter 2005 - Projects

Winter 2005 Design Project Competition: April 21, 2005 Everyone is invited