Types: Projects typically involve the creation of new
products, the re-engineering of existing products, or the design of enhanced
manufacturing facilities. Health, safety, and environmental concerns are
frequently addressed.
Innovation: Projects should demand that students be
creative. Moreover, students should have the freedom to explore numerous
ideas without having solutions imposed on them by the industrial partner. However,
students should have access to company data on benchmarking, patent literature
and previous generations of products.
Prototype Fabrication: The design-build-and-test philosophy
is very important. Indeed, the opportunity to develop "hands-on" engineering
experience is welcomed by students, and it provides a highly motivational
component of this educational activity. However, paper studies are sometimes
accepted too.
Proprietary Information: Students deliver a public
presentation at the end-of-semester Student Design Conference. If the project
involves proprietary information, or issues of intellectual property rights,
then agreements can be developed between the students and the industrial
partner.
Conventional Methods: Projects should require the application
of fundamental engineering skills rather than highly specialized technologies
and exotic software packages.
Partners receive focused attention on industrial design problems through
student and faculty involvement.
This focused attention is facilitated by access to the significant eclectic
resources of a major research university.
Projects often yield cost-effective solutions through the infusion of fresh
new ideas.
Each project is subjected to more than 600 hours of innovation by teams
of enthusiastic and well-trained students. Novel, nontraditional approaches
are forthcoming to provide new perspectives and viable creative solutions.
Design teams prepare a comprehensive written final report. A prototype is
usually built to validate ideas and augment the report.
Industrial partners gain a basis for interacting with bright students and
advertising their company to the Department of Mechanical Engineering's senior
class.
