Here
is our Senior Design program in a nutshell:
Our philosophy is to provide real-world design team experience to launch
our graduates into their engineering careers. The student teams typically
have 4-6 members and are interdisciplinary within the field of Electrical
and Computer Engineering. We encourage multidisciplinary teams including other engineering disciplines as well. Unlike many schools, we devote
a full academic year to Senior Design, on top of a full and rigorous academic
curriculum. Michigan Techs students are well-prepared for their senior year
through intensive hands-on lab experience during the entire 2nd and 3rd
years, plus enjoying strong course work in the theory, analysis, and modeling
of ECE problems and methods.
During the year, each student team devotes about 1000 person-hours to
a company-specified problem. (1000 student hours is roughly equivalent
to 400 professional engineering hours.) In the beginning of the year we
provide to the students formal instruction in project management, design
principles, teamwork, documentation, intellectual property, budgeting,
ethics, and other relevant topics. By the end of the year, each team has
delivered design reviews, a final report, a formal end-of-project presentation,
and iften prototypes and software to our industry partner. We tie student
grades to successful completion of the project, schedule, and budget.
Note: Because these are student projects we cannot guarabtee success
at the end of the year. However, we do share with our sponsor everything
we learn on the project, and this invariably includes reports, hardware,
and software. We are pleased to provide what our team learns because a real world problem greatly enhances the educational experience
of our seniors as they prepare for their careers.
Michigan
Techs ECE Senior Design Teams and WCE Enterprise Program Featured
in the Bechtel Globe |
Benefits to you, our company sponsor, include the
following:
- 1000 hours of high-energy student team effort devoted to a company-chosen
problem.
- Comprehensive reports and presentations. Meetings (optional)
can be arranged at Michigan Tech or a company site. Michigan Tech also has video-conference
facilities.
- Enhanced access to students for potential hiring. There is potential
access to the entire senior class by providing a seminar speaker
or by attending the end-of-year Senior Design symposium.
- Access to faculty for possible consultations or development
of additional (graduate-level) research projects.
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Michigan Techs responsibilities and obligations to you, our sponsor, include
the following:
- We create a motivated student design team. The students rank-order
their project topical choices and we work to match projects to desires.
- We are continually improving our facilities. We dedicate 2 labs to
Senior Design and continually add state-of-the-practice instrumentation
and computing power.
- We will protect proprietary information and will sign an appropriate
non-disclosure agreement, if desired.
- We provide a faculty advisor to help keep our team on track.
- We work to ensure an appropriate level of communication between team
and sponsor - not too much, not too little. Just let us know what
works for you.
- We ensure that the team provides status updates.
- Our team provides to the sponsor the Final Report, the symposium presentation,
and if appropriate, hardware/software prototypes.
- We participate in the College of Engineering end-of-year full-day
Senior Design, Enterprise and Undergraduate Research Expo and organize
a banquet for the sponsors. Companies may attend any or all of the presentations.
Company sponsorship responsibilities are the following:
*** If you need an extension on any of the dates, let me know and we’ll
work it out. ***
- May - June 2006: Sponsor appoints a company engineer
for liaison with the project team and faculty advisor. During the September
- May academic year, this will typically involve a phone call
every 2-3 weeks from the team to seek technical counsel and provide
status updates.
- May - June 2006: Sponsor provides to Michigan Tech
a 1-2 paragraph project description. In addition to a description of
the technical challenge, include a couple of sentences about the significance
of the project and its potential impact for the company. This will help
us to 'sell' the project to our students.
*** We encourage you to offer more than 1 project if you desire! You
can also re-offer a project you have sponsored before if there is more
work to be done. ***
- June, 2006: Michigan Tech will advise you whether
a student team has been selected for your project and the project is
a 'go.'
- July, 2006: Company sponsor provides a grant of $15,000
per project. This financing supports project team expenses in HW/SW,
travel, phone calls, parts, books, lit searches, etc. We also use some
of these funds to support our dedicated Senior Design laboratories,
including instrumentation, computers, and bench stock supporting all
the teams. We have recently added technician support specifically for
Senior Design and use a fraction of the funds to support that position. Note: Most companies provide the requested grant as a gift to our
Senior Design Program. This allows a tax benefit as appropriate under
the law. We can execute a standard contract, however, if you prefer,
but this necessitates the addition of 15% overhead. Note: Even in the
case of a contract, we do not promise 'deliverables', but
only 'best effort' on the part of our student team.
***We estimate that executing a typical project would "cost" a sponsor
at least $50,000 if done through an internal task force or an external
contractor or consultant.***
- August, 2006: Sponsor provides appropriate background
information and documentation to get the team started. A good set of
background information is key to an effective project start.
- September, 2006- May, 2007: Consult with the
Design Team periodically by telephone and email. You are encouraged
to visit the campus any time that it is convenient for you and/or invite
the team to visit your company.
- April, 2007: Attend the end-of-year Senior Design
Symposium.
Please advise me if you have any questions or concerns about the lists
above. Our intent is to provide far more to you than we ask for in return.
And well certainly seek feedback from you to evaluate whether we
have succeeded! Your final evaluation of the project will help determine
the students grades and whether they are awarded a cash bonus.
*** IMPORTANT *** We strongly encourage project ideas
that have a hands-on component, including development of some hardware
and/or software prototype. The students need to feel the pressure of designing
and building something that works! To save cost or limit scope, the prototype
development may, perhaps, represent a piece of the overall problem. We
do recognize, however, that some substantive projects may be primarily
analytical - which is OK - lets just make sure the
scope is substantial.
*** ALTERNATIVELY *** A fraction of our students opt
for what we call 'The Entrepreneurial Project.' They generate
their own product development concept and take it through prototyping.
We are continually seeking grants to support these projects, although
they might not be of direct benefit to the company partner.
Please note that we ask from you in the near term only to draft a short project description and identify a liaison so I
can keep in touch. If any problems arise, dont be deterred.
Im sure we can be as flexible as you need us to be.
Additional information about Senior Design, including a list of projects
executed over the last several years can be found on our ECE Dept. web
site (http://www.ece.mtu.edu). Click
on 'Senior Design.' Youll find samples of the 1-2 paragraph
project descriptions submitted by company partners in the past.
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