Leveraging the Capstone Design Project to Foster Entrepreneurship ...

Paper ID #30424

Leveraging the Capstone Design Project to Foster Entrepreneurship andAddress Real-World Problems

Dr. Austin B. Asgill P.E., Kennesaw State University

Dr Austin B. Asgill received his B.Eng.(hons) (E.E.) degree from Fourah Bay College, University ofSierra Leone, his M.Sc. (E.E.) degree from the University of Aston in Birmingham, and his Ph.D. inElectrical Engineering from the University of South Florida. He is currently a Professor of EngineeringTechnology (Electrical) at Kennesaw State University (KSU). Prior to joining the faculty at KSU (formerlySPSU), he was an Associate Professor of Electronic Engineering Technology at Florida A&M University(FAMU), where he served as Program Area Coordinator and Interim Division Director. With over 28 yearsof teaching experience in Electrical/Electronic Engineering and Engineering Technology, he currentlyteaches in the areas of networking, communication systems, biomedical instrumentation, digital signalprocessing, and analog and digital electronics. He has worked in industry in the areas of telephony,networking, switching and transmission systems, and RF and MMIC circuits and system design. Dr.Asgill also has an MBA in Entrepreneurial Management from Florida State University. He has served onthe board of the Tau Alpha Pi (TAP) National ET Honors Society since 2012 (Chair 2012-2014). He is aSenior Member of the IEEE, a Member of the ASEE, and is a licensed Professional Engineer (P.E.) in thestate of Florida.

c©American Society for Engineering Education, 2020

Leveraging the Capstone Design Project to Foster Entrepreneurship and Address Real-World Problems

Austin B. Asgill

Southern Polytechnic State University

Abstract The Senior Capstone Design Project course has traditionally been used to train students of engineering with practical skills and prepare them for real engineering life. Engineering technology (ET) programs, on the other hand, have always claimed to offer hands-on, practical real-world engineering training for their students and graduates. This is usually achieved through structured laboratory-based courses and project-based learning courses throughout their curriculum. In the EET program at Kennesaw State University, the Capstone Design course experience was offered through a menu of project-based senior design courses that students got to choose from based on their specific electrical areas of interest. This served the program well for several years but did not always offer the students a uniform design experience as that depended on the instructor(s) teaching those classes in a given semester. As a result, the EET faculty concluded that in order to offer a more uniform experience to each cohort of students, it was best to offer a more traditional singular capstone design course taught by a single faculty member each semester. The focus of the new course is on addressing real-world problems and fostering the notion of entrepreneurship in the students. This would make the experience truly meaningful and more beneficial for the students in further preparing them for the real world of engineering. In this paper we examine some of the reasoning that went into the development of the new EET Senior Capstone Design Project course, as well as discuss some of the projects that were developed by the students during the first years of offering the new course.

Index Terms – Senior Capstone Design Project, Engineering Technology (ET)

I. Introduction The Engineering Technology discipline is defined as the part of the technological field that requires the application of scientific and engineering knowledge and methods combined with technical skills in support of engineering activities; it lies in the occupational spectrum between the craftsman and the engineer at the end of the spectrum closest to the engineer 1, 2. The Electrical Engineering Technology (EET) program at Kennesaw State University is housed within the Southern Polytechnic College of Engineering and Engineering Technology (SPCEET) on the Marietta, Georgia campus. The program has gone through several changes since the merger

between its Kennesaw State University and its original base university Southern Polytechnic State University (SPSU) in 2015. The EET program was originally housed along with the Computer Engineering Technology (CpET) and Telecommunication Engineering Technology (TCET) programs within the Electrical and Computer Engineering Technology (ECET) department. The TCET program has since been discontinued and the CpET program has been converted to a new Computer Engineering degree program. The growth of engineering programs and dwindling student enrollments in the ET program led to the program being merged with the Mechanical Engineering Technology (MET) program in a new department of Engineering Technology (ENGT). The ENGT faculty have viewed this merger as an opportunity for the new department to leverage the strengths within the two programs to offer unique curricula that support local industry and affords students the opportunity to engage in real-world learning experiences through interactions with industry. The EET faculty considered the Senior Capstone Design Project a perfect vehicle to fulfil both opportunities.

Prior to the 2015-2016 academic year, the EET Capstone Design course experience was offered through a menu of project-based senior design courses that students got to choose from based on their specific electrical areas of interest (Table I). This served the program well for several years but did not always offer the students a uniform design experience. The experience depended on the instructor(s) teaching those classes in a given semester. As enrollments dwindled, some faculty were re-assigned to engineering programs within the college, and the pool of available faculty teaching the capstone courses was reduced. The remaining EET faculty concluded that in order to offer a more uniform experience to each cohort of students, it was best to offer a more traditional singular capstone design course taught by a single faculty member each semester. The focus of the new course is on addressing real-world problems and fostering the notion of entrepreneurship in the students. Students and faculty were encouraged to work closely with industry partners to develop beneficial relationships that will have them more actively engaged in providing opportunities for students to work on projects that serve the needs of industry as well as provide real-world experiences for the students engaged in those projects. The EET Industry Advisory Board is also seen as one vehicle for establishing such industrial relation. This paper examines some of the reasoning that went into the development of the new EET Senior Capstone Design Project course, as well as discusses some of the projects that were developed by the students during the first year of offering the new course.

II. Motivation and Background

As stated previously, the main motivation for reviewing the capstone course offerings was (a) the need to offer a uniform design experience to student cohorts, (2) the desire to increase industry input into the design project experience, and (3) the reduction in available faculty to teach the menu of project-based capstone courses.

Table 1a lists the menu of capstone courses that have been replaced by the single capstone design project course, ECET 4900, that is currently offered. Table 1b lists the approved capstone courses from the former CpET and TCET degree programs 3.

Table 1a. Capstone Menu of Courses (Pre-2015) Capstone Menu pre-2015 Course Title

ECET 3640 Into. to Systems Engineering & Robotics ECET 4330 Audio Technology ECET 4431 Wireless Communication Systems ECET 4450 RF Electronics ECET 4520 Industrial Distribution Systems, Illumination, and the NEC ECET 4530 Industrial Motor Controls EET Approved Elective Any Approved Project-Based Capstone Elective Course

Table 1b. Other Approved Capstone Courses (Pre-2015) EET Approved Electives Course Title ECET 4710 Network Programming and Interfacing ECET 4720 Distributed Microcontrollers and PCs ECET 4730 VHDL and Field Programmable Gate Arrays ECET 4850 Telecommunications Engineering Technology Capstone Project

Each of these courses had a significant project design component which was used to satisfy the senior project design requirement of the EET curriculum. Depending of their area of interest, students were able to choose from this menu of courses to satisfy the capstone requirement. The choice of projects topics was mostly dictated by the faculty’s interest and industry input was minimal. However, as the TCET program was terminated and the CpET converted to a computer engineering degree, some of the faculty who had taught

a number of these courses were transferred to other programs in engineering. As a result, it became difficult to offer enough of them to satisfy the needs of the EET students. The EET faculty considered it appropriate to convert to a single capstone design projects with the intent to seek greater input from industry in the form of providing students the opportunity to work of real-world projects of mutual interest to the industry and the students. Members of the EET Industry Advisory Board were encouraged to assist the faculty in reaching out to their companies and industry partners in order to establish the necessary relationships to strengthen the course offerings.

III. Capstone Design Project Development

Previous research on project-based instruction shows that the ABET required competencies for engineering technology programs, are better implemented through project-based instruction 2. Other researchers have determined that project-based instruction is an extremely effective method of learning the fundamentals and understanding how engineering principles are applied to solve design problems 4.

In the ABET 2020-2021 Accreditation General Criteria under curriculum, it is stated that “Baccalaureate degree curricula must provide a capstone or integrating experience that develops student competencies in applying both technical and non-technical skills in solving problems” 5.

In keeping with the ABET criteria and in line with the existing menu courses, it was decided to keep the new capstone design project course at 4 credit hours (2-6-4). Two hours are allocated each week for lectures and one-on-one meetings with student groups. Six hours per week are allocated for project design work. Students are required to work in teams of at least two individuals depending on the size of the cohort of students. The course outcomes are the following:

After successfully completing this course, students will be able to demonstrate that they can do the following:

1. Apply engineering design principles to formulate a problem statement, analyze requirements and produce a system-level block diagram.

2. Develop a prototype of an electrical/electronic and/or software system to meet given specifications.

3. Integrate knowledge from across the core Electrical Engineering Technology curriculum. 4. Work effectively and productively in a team environment. 5. Effectively communicate technical ideas and concepts.

The required course deliverables are as follows:

1. Problem Statement (Definition) 2. Benchmark Studies 3. Requirements Specification 4. System Block Diagram 5. System Specification and Design/Analysis 6. Prototype Fabrication 7. Testing/Debugging Plan 8. Three Milestone Review Reports and Final Report/Presentation (Communication)

In addition to lectures on specific project related area topics, students receive lectures and engage in discussions on:

• Engineering research & research methods • Project planning and development • Teamwork • Engineering economics, and other aspects related to design projects • Technical Report Writing • Engineering Ethics

Students are encouraged to be the main drivers of the capstone design project course who form their own teams and seek out real-world projects from industry partners or from suggested topics provided by faculty throughout the college. With the emphasis on collaboration across disciplines, the EET students are encouraged to work on interdisciplinary projects wherever possible. The

chosen projects must address the solution to a real-world problem or need. The main deliverables are a demonstrably working project prototype, a written project report, and an oral presentation of project results to an audience of students, faculty, and industry partners when available.

IV. First Years Results

During the first two years of offering the new course, the industry relationships were still evolving and though the students came up with exemplary real-world projects, only one has received support from industry.

Amongst the projects undertaken by students so far are the following:

• Solar Powered Autonomous Boat using the Arduino • Smart Mirror with Home-Monitoring Functionality • An Electronically Controller Container for Secure Package Delivery • Raspberry Pi Controlled Irrigation System • Automated Garage Door Opener • Voice-Enabled IoT Bartender - Drinkautonic • Industrial Wire Cutting Machine**

The last project listed (**) received some industry support in terms of provision of materials and surplus parts, and access to tools for the project. The project was the brainchild of one member of the team, who had utilized industrial wire cutting machines in his work and was looking at ways to develop a more up-to-date and cost-effective wire cutting machine. Some of these projects required significant software programming effort by team members, whereas others were more hardware oriented. The scope of the capstone projects has been limited by what can be successfully accomplished within a one semester time frame. Even though the course has a single instructor each semester, students are encouraged to seek additional help from other faculty members within the ET and engineering programs. So far, the students have handled the requirements well and have been able to completely their projects within the required time frame. The students were given a self-evaluation questionnaire to complete at the end of the course to be used in course assessment and to provide feedback to the faculty instructor for course improvement. Course feedback from the student evaluations have been extremely positive and has consistently shown that this new course is preferred by the student cohorts over the menu approach. Some of the student responses are summarized and reproduced in Table II.

Table II. Student Questionnaire Responses

Question Student Responses Any additional comments about the team's interaction/productivity?

“The team worked very well together. I believe our familiarity with each other and knowing the way each other works was a huge contributor to the fluidity of the process”

“The team interaction environment was positive; therefore, there were not internal conflicts”

“We worked very well together. As team leader I felt that I really didn’t do much because the team was mature enough to realize when something needed to be done any one individual would do it.”

“Our team worked well together and did not have any major issues. We had healthy discussion and disagreement, in attempt to better our project.”

“the overall experience as a team was great. Our overall productivity could have been better if we held each other more accountable early on, but we resolved those issues in the middle of the semester.”

“We worked very well as a team respected each other and always pushed each other to improve productivity in a healthy way. I am going to miss working with my teams’ mates once they graduate but hopefully, we can stay in touch and work on future projects outside of school.”

Do you feel that the project was suitably challenging, and allowed you to incorporate the knowledge gained throughout your curriculum?

“the project was suitably challenging especially when taken into consideration, the fact that none of us are extremely strong in the programming department. Throughout the project I believe we were able to incorporate and take advantage of numerous educational advancements that we have attained throughout our time at KSU” “Yes, it was a challenging project that involved the knowledge learned throughout our curriculum. For example, C++ was the programming language used to work on this project. The knowledge gained in Digital II and Hardware Programming and Interfacing about assembly and C# languages allowed me to easily transition to a new programming language”

“At one point I thought we bit off more than we could chew. Because none of had extensive coding background we struggled to get the code to work properly. For the most part we did use at least 90% of the electronic knowledge that we had accumulated over the years to make the project work.”

”I absolutely believe our project was challenging enough to incorporate everything that we have learned up to this point. I do think our project was a little heavier on the coding side, than the electrical engineering side. However, we had to solve quite a few circuit issues to get our project to work, and our EET experience was vital.”

“Our project combined a nice amount of hardware and software integration. We used a lot of knowledge gained from our previous classes. Circuit design, reading documentation (data sheets), and programming with hardware were all used extensively.”

“The project was very challenging especially with the little amount of time that we had. I feel that we used all the skills we learned in school plus working skills that helped finish the machine in time.”

“Yes, I totally believe that this project was really challenging because it was sort of 4 projects in one.”

If you could start over again, what would you do differently, if anything? (This question allows you the opportunity to state what you’ve learned from the project, provides valuable feedback to help other students in the future).

“I would push to have the garage built a lot sooner than we did. This would allow us more time to test and troubleshoot the program. There were still a few bugs that could have been corrected had more time been available” “I think one of our biggest issues is finding out at the last minute that it would be hard to test our boat project at this time of year.”

“I would start earlier with the mechanical assembly of the project. We would have taken advantage of having access to a mechanical workshop where we could easily cut metal pieces, which would have decreased the time spent making the metal parts for the machine.”

“We needed to keep our scope small enough that we would not get overwhelmed, and would be able to complete everything, and do it well. I think that we followed that very well, up until the last two weeks. If we had kept our scope small, our project would not have been as impressive, but I believe everything would have worked much more efficiently.”

“I believe if we had two semesters to do the project, we could have done a lot more with the garage door; Implemented more ideas and different functions. Also, it would have given each member time to rotate tasks on the project and get to learn a little bit more.”

“if we were to do this project again, we would create a better timetable for the project. The issues we encountered were from putting too many components into the same time slot, which resulted in some parts of the project getting pushed to the last minute.”

“I would have planned for the mechanical difficulties a bit better that we would have avoided but I think we did the best we could.”

Anything else you want me to know, either about the project or the evaluations?

“Although we were in teams it also felt like one large team at the same time. We all would request assistance from one another without hesitation.”

“I had a positive experience working on this project with my team. I think it was good that we had the opportunity to choose our project from the beginning of the semester because there was more motivation to complete the project.”

“We chose that project because it was difficult enough and not at as simple as the other projects. We wanted to do something challenging, so we never thought it could get this challenging.”

“The presentations throughout the year were very helpful at limiting my nervousness towards the final presentation.”

“Only thing we would like to say is Thank you for everything and also for supporting and showing your excitement towards out project idea.”

Students have also indicated that their understanding of fundamental principles and their application to engineering design has been greatly enhanced. Some concern has been expressed about the ability to complete certain projects within a one semester timeframe. Another area in which students have expressed an enhanced interest is in the pursuit of life-long learning, and the desire to apply the engineering skills to address and solve real-world issues.

V. Future Work

While the first-year results have been positive, there is more work to be done to improve the Senior Capstone Design course. Topics relating to lifelong learning, entrepreneurial skills development and management as additions to the course are being developed. The EET faculty are also looking at improving the survey instrument and developing assessment metrics to better measure the entrepreneurial interests of students and as more industry collaborations are developed, to better measure the impact of industry collaborations on developing entrepreneurial skills. The student outcomes will be augmented to include demonstrating a basic understanding of entrepreneurship. Another area that is under consideration is inviting faculty from the College of Business to give guest lectures on entrepreneurship and starting a small business.

A major challenge for the EET faculty has been in developing enough industry interest in supporting the Senior Capstone Design course with industry projects. There is active competition with other departments such as electrical and computer engineering, and mechatronics as well as with other institutions in the Atlanta area for industry partnerships. However, it is anticipated that as more industry collaborations are developed, future student projects will become more industry driven, and more students will consider becoming entrepreneurs providing services to industry partners.

VI. Conclusion

Project-based learning is a time honored and proven approach to engineering education. The development of a single capstone design project course to replace the menu approach for providing the capstone experience is proving to be successful for the EET program at Kennesaw State University. The one semester course has so far produced exemplary student project work. However, this one semester time frame has proven to be too short for some types of projects. It is anticipated that as industry contributed projects become more of the norm, some projects may require multiple semesters to complete and may have to be completed in phases. The EET faculty, in consultation with the IAB and industry partners are already looking at a two-semester capstone design project, with the first semester dedicated to design project proposal and preliminary research, and the second semester fully devoted to project work. This is a model that is already being employed by some of the engineering programs within the college and is also used by other engineering and ET programs around the nation 6-8.

References

[1] ABET Inc. Web Page: http://www.abet.org [2] J. Earnest, “ABET Engineering Technology Criteria and Competency Based Engineering Education”, 35th

ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, Indianapolis, IN, 2005. [3] Kennesaw State University catalog: http://catalog.kennesaw.edu/index.php.

[4] R. N. Savage, K. C. Chen, L. Vanasupa, “Integrating Project-based Learning Throughout the Undergraduate Engineering Curriculum”, Journal of STEM Education: Innovation and Research, Jan. 2007.

[5] ABET Inc. 2020-2021 criteria: https://www.abet.org/accreditation/accreditation-criteria/criteria-for-accrediting-engineering-technology-programs-2020-2021/

[6] M.W. Weiser and R.E. Gerlick, “Expansion of the ME/MET Capstone Course from One to Two Quarters”, 2014 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition Proceedings, Indianapolis IN, June 2014.

[7] M. Omar, “Design and Implementation of a Capstone Course to Satisfy the Industry Needs of a Virtual Product Development and ABET Engineering Criteria”. Education Research International, Volume 2014, Article ID 578148, Hindawi Publishing Corporation: http://dx.doi.org/10/1155/2014/578148.

[8] Texas A&M College of Engineering, MMET Capstone Project Webpage: https://engineering.tamu.edu/etid/mmet/capstone-project.html