Capstone Design Overview
Welcome to the College of Engineering’s Capstone Design Program website. Capstone Design is the culmination of undergraduate students’ study in their chosen engineering discipline and is a required course. With private and industry sponsors participating through many of our departments, our students gain hands-on experience with projects that have real-world applications. We welcome individual and industry inquiries about this program as well as projects that match the discipline focus of our departments.
- Aerospace Engineering
- Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering
- Chemical and Biological Engineering
- Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering
- ECpE Capstone website
- IMSE Capstone website
- MSE Design Projects
- ME Capstone website
Capstone Contact
Mayra Ramirez , CIRAS Phone: 515-520-3101 Email: [email protected] .
- General Info
- Propose a Project
Projects Ending May 2021
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"They came up with a new approach that we’d not pursued previously. We’re taking one of their concepts further this summer, leveraging one of our Iowa State co-op students to get the idea market ready."
- Kevin Gaul, Pella Corporation
Student Projects at ISU
Several colleges at Iowa State University, including the College of Engineering, require every student to complete a capstone project to graduate. Many of these projects are sponsored by companies. A team of senior students work with the company to apply learned principles, which could include engineering analyses and design recommendations. Project topics reflect Iowa State’s various colleges and departments – e.g., mechanical, electrical, software, computer, industrial, agriculture, material sciences, or chemical. Projects may take place during one or two semesters and are offered twice per year (fall and spring semesters).
Typical capstone project areas include product design, machine design, process improvement and modeling, plant layout, new concept exploration, or data analytics. Students can access Iowa State labs and expertise of faculty as part of the project.
Iowa companies receive two significant benefits from their involvement in a capstone project:
- Additional technical resources to solve problems and explore ideas
- Access to students, who can also be assessed as future employees
To seek guidance about capstone design projects or to schedule a no-cost assessment, contact your Regional CIRAS Strategic Advisor or Project Manager Mayra Ramirez . Click here to learn more about the Iowa State College of Engineering Capstone Program.
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Design Projects
Design projects for student teams.
The goal of the senior design projects is to provide materials science and engineering undergraduates with a practical and realistic senior design experience. The department has developed a program by which senior students work closely with industry leaders on real materials problems.
The objective of this design course is not only to learn and practice the methods of engineering design, but also to carry through with synthesis, testing and evaluation. This experience often provides students with their first opportunity to work with engineers in industry.
Course Structure
MAT E 413/414 is a two-semester course in which materials engineering students work on industry sponsored projects. Offered in both the fall and spring semesters, students begin by learning the fundamentals of engineering design and materials selection before teaming to address a real-world design problem. Working with a faculty mentor and project sponsors, teams collaborate to define the customer needs, consider constraints, develop and implement potential design solutions and test and evaluate the results. The projects culminate in a final written and oral report presented to faculty, industry sponsors, and peers. Some projects start in mid-October and end in early May and others start in mid-March and end in early December.
A successful project doesn’t always involve making something, though it might. A potential project could be evaluating an existing or developing a new material or process.
All proposed projects should include an element of creative problem solving and iterative design, including analysis and recommendations for further optimization.
When evaluating a potential project, please consider the following:
- Projects should be relevant to the company.
- Projects should include a set of long-range objectives as well as a set of clear short-term objectives that are achievable by students within the project timeframe.
- Each project needs an industrial partner to provide the student group with project objectives and criteria for success.
What is Involved?
In addition to a project description that highlights key objectives, constraints, and metrics for success, companies are asked to provide the following:
- Financial Commitment : Companies are asked to commit up to $1000 as a reimbursement for itemized costs incurred by the student team during the course of the project. Company approval is required before a group can go over budget.
- Resources : This may include samples, supplies, or specialized equipment. An engineer within the company should be assigned as a primary point of contact for the team. Student travel to the company and/or having company personnel visit Iowa State should also be considered. It is important for the company to commit an individual or individuals who are knowledgeable about the project and have the time to serve as an industry mentor for the student group.
- Deliverables : This includes items such as reports/analyses, prototypes, models, software, data, etc.
- Confidential Information and/or Intellectual Property agreements: While it is the University’s preference that sponsors make a reasonable effort to avoid the inclusion of confidential information in these projects, there is a Non-Disclosure Agreement form available in cases where this isn’t possible. While the University encourages sponsors to permit students to retain their intellectual property rights, there is a Special Intellectual Property Agreement form available to permit the sponsor to obtain ownership rights
The benefits to participating companies could include:
- Student teams providing insights into existing problems.
- Exploring new concepts and processes through a low-cost, low-risk investigation.
- Engaging with students as potential employees, evaluating their engineering and communication skills.
- Gaining exposure on campus as senior students are considering employment opportunities.
- Having access to equipment and expertise not available at their own site.
Benefits to Students
The benefits to participating students could include:
- Engaging with industry professionals who could be potential employers
- Participating in practical, innovative resolution strategies and design
- Gaining experience working with equipment in MSE
- Receiving wisdom, advice, and feedback from mentors from each partnering company
- Exploring new concepts and processes through a low-cost, low-risk investigation
- Gaining communication skills by excelling in team collaboration and presenting final results to your class
Examples of Design Project Abstracts
__________ sponsored this project to develop a method to remove gold from the intensifier solution used to weatherproof their product. The process must be safe. The solution exiting as waste should have less gold in it than it currently does. It is not necessary to extract elemental gold for reuse/sale from the process but it is desirable if cost effective.
is sponsoring this project to characterize the mechanical properties of their copper-nickel-tin alloy as a function of heat treatment. In particular, would like Iowa State University to identify the ideal parameters to obtain complete microstructural homogenization. Iowa State University will characterize the mechanical properties by examining microstructure and obtaining hardness measurements. Heat treatment of the material has begun, and the group anticipates this portion of the experiment to be completed by the end of March. Upon completion of heat treatments, samples will be quenched in either slow-quenching oil or a brine solution and aged at various times. After this part of the experiment is completed, the material’s mechanical properties will be thoroughly examined with the final goal of identifying the ideal parameters for complete microstructural homogenization.
Information for Companies
Senior Design Handout
Project Information Information Sheet
For more information and questions, contact Martha Selby .
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Senior Design Team sdmay22-03 • Senior Design Server/Client Development for Project Matching (Team 1)
Project Vision:
- Higher satisfaction of project and teammate assignment from Students, Clients, and Professors
- Easier and more transparent team assignment process
- Easier way to view project
- Better understanding of how the teams are assigned Easier UI for entering of preferences
- Students have expressed frustration and dissatisfaction with the team assignments, both teammates and project
- Clients want students who are excited to work on their projects
- Everyone involved with senior design desires the smoothest and optimal outcome for the class.
CS Senior Design
Managing senior design sites.
These are instructions for managing senior design sites.
- A role account, sponsored by the faculty advisor for COMS 402C, that has permission to create new sites, add netids to sites, and edit sites.
- A site creation form. Only the role account has access to this form.
- A CS Senior Design website (this site) that describes the course.
- Individual sites, one per project.
Creating a Site
- Using the role account, log into https://sites.iastate.edu/login
- Navigate to https://sites.iastate.edu/create/seniordesignsite
- Enter the project title as the Title for the site, e.g., Concurrent Cluster Manager
- Enter a Path for the site in the form of [year]-[graduating month]-[team number]. E.g., 2020-May-03 for team 3 in spring semester of 2020.
- Click Submit. You should see a green message at the top indicating your site is building.
Giving a Team Access to Their Site
- Using the role account, log into the team site at the URL which consists of https://seniord.cs.iastate.edu/[path]/login . For example, the login link for the example site in (4) above would be https://seniord.cs.iastate.edu/2020-May-03/login . This link will also be given in the email that is sent to the role account's Exchange mailbox after the site is created.
- After logging in, use these instructions to add members of the team by entering their netids and assigning them the Content Editor role.
- Notify the team of their new site, providing them the login link.
Add the New Project to the List
Add a link to the site to the Projects List .
IMAGES
VIDEO
COMMENTS
These pages contain links to current and previously-completed Senior Design projects, organized based on the final month of the semester of completion.
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Welcome to the website for Senior Design in the Department of Computer Science at Iowa State University. Since the department has moved to a track system
Computer Science Senior Design Projects. 2023 Spring. 2023-Jan-SD1 ICPC-1; 2023-Jan-SD2 VetGo; 2023-Jan-SD3 QR Code - Digital Experience; 2023-Jan-SD4 ICPC-
Capstone Design is the culmination of undergraduate students' study in their chosen engineering discipline and is a required course. With private and industry
May21-01: Interactive Secure Headset. May21-02: Immersive Experiences for Zoos and Aquariums (Virtual Reality / Full Stack).
Typical capstone project areas include product design, machine design, process improvement and modeling, plant layout, new concept exploration, or data
Student travel to the company and/or having company personnel visit Iowa State should also be considered. It is important for the company to commit an
Senior Design Team sdmay22-03 • Senior Design Server/Client Development for Project Matching (Team 1). Project Vision: This project is aiming to streamline
Individual sites, one per project. Creating a Site. Using the role account, log into https://sites.iastate.edu/login; Navigate to https://sites