ABET Outcome

3) Provide opportunities for students to engage in projects in electrical and computer engineering that emphasize teamwork, communication, and/or engineering design including in-depth design projects.

The purpose of this outcome is to guarantee students experience engineering in more depth than that found in a typical weekly homework assignment. A project may contain any or all of the above components, but the capstone design project should incorporate all of them. The key terms that define this outcome are “teamwork”, “communication”, “engineering design”, and “in-depth design projects”.

Teamwork is defined to be work done in a group of at least two students in which each student contributes to the project outcome.

Communication may be written and/or oral. At a minimum, written communication should convey concepts/designs in an understandable and organized format; document the major findings of any student effort; have correct grammar and usage appropriate for the assignment; and have references where appropriate. Oral communication is an organized public presentation in which the speaker will present, explain, and/or defend concepts, decisions, or scholarly research.

Engineering Design consists of several key points. All design projects should at a minimum:

• Be an open-ended problem with a well-defined outcome.
• Demonstrate an ability to apply fundamental concepts.
• Consider several possible solutions.
• Choose an acceptable approach to solution of the problem.
• Demonstrate that the outcome has been met.

An In-Depth Project is one in which a student or team:

• Is given an open ended problem*.
• Analyzes several possible solutions.
• Determines the best approach.
• Models and/or simulates the solution.
• Designs a solution to the problem which can be either hardware or software*.
• Builds this solution.
• Tests and/or characterizes the solution.
• Documents the results*.
• Presents the results.

Although not all in-depth projects must include all the items listed above, the items marked with an * must be included.

In addition, an in-depth project will require skills or concepts from several engineering courses and demonstrate that the student is able to integrate these concepts across disciplines or sub-disciplines.