Florida A&M-FSU

Senior Design Capstone Course: Collection of Projects with Featured Everglades Restoration Project

The project abstract is below. For the indepth project description, click here to download a PDF.

Abstract

Our capstone courses, “Pre-Senior Design and Professional Issues” and “Senior Design Project”, are taken by students over a two-semester period. The first purpose of these courses is to give our senior students an understanding of non-technical, professional issues, such as how to work effectively in teams, good oral and written communication skills, and ethics. The second purpose is to give them an opportunity to complete a comprehensive design of a civil and/or environmental engineering project, whereby they do independent research, plan the project from conception to design, and learn skills beyond those that are taught in their regular coursework.

Civil and environmental engineering projects are multi-disciplinary by nature. It takes knowledge that goes beyond that of one faculty member. All students must eventually seek guidance from faculty other than the course instructor and also from professional practicing engineers; in fact, in this course, it is a requirement for the students to have industry and faculty mentors and to report weekly on their collaboration efforts.

In part because of this capstone course, our department and professional practitioners have fostered a mutually beneficial relationship over the years. This course is taught (or managed, rather) most effectively when professionals who are involved in design on a day-to-day basis volunteer their time for the students. Collectively, these volunteers represent a whole gamut of experts. They help us by giving classroom lectures, donating real-world projects and background information, mentoring students, reviewing submittals, and judging oral presentations. With the help of practitioners, students transition from well-defined, short, narrowly-focused assignments to an open-ended, detailed, multi-faceted project.

This submittal will explain the objectives of the course, the role of practicing engineers and faculty, course requirements, and types of projects that have been designed by students recently. For each project, a rating for the integration with licensed practice is given. This collection of projects includes a variety of topics and was supported by many faculty, engineers, and engineering firms/agencies. At the end of this submittal, a detailed description of a featured project, sponsored by the US Army Corps of Engineers, for the Florida Everglades Restoration is provided.

We appreciate NCEES for giving engineering programs this opportunity to showcase their partnership efforts, and we thank ABET, the engineering deans, ASEE, NAE, and NSPE for their partnership by being on the award jury. We hope that news of this award will encourage professionals to get involved with engineering students across the nation, because their time and sharing of knowledge make a difference.