An International Multiyear Multidisciplinary Capstone Design Project

Abstract

James Ellingson received his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Minnesota. Honors include a full-year Fulbright Grant for work at the Technical University of Denmark and an NSF-JISTEC grant for summer research in Japan. He worked for more than 10 years in industrial automation, instrumentation, and process development at 3M, Boston Scientific, and PPSI. In 2009, he returned to academia, joining the engineering faculty at the University of Saint Thomas, where he teaches courses in embedded systems, digital electronics, micro controllers, and machine design.

A Third-Year Review of Design and Packaging for Sensor Systems

“…The nature of capstone courses make them inherently suitable for multidisciplinary projects [18][19] . Students may elect to participate in stand-alone collaborations [20][21][22][23][24][25][26] , while some universities deliberately structure the capstone experience for multidisciplinary work [27][28][29][30] . Institutions have also explored and implemented program-level efforts such as interdisciplinary minors, certificates, and degree programs [31][32][33][34][35] .…”

Assessment of a Multi-University Unmanned Systems Capstone Design Project

“…These teams can range from multi-university teams in the same country 2 to international multiuniversity teams. 3,4 In addition to the traditional challenges of multidisciplinary teams, these teams are also faced with the challenges of being geographically separated, often with a different language or culture. Challenges include scheduling difficulties due to different time zones and school vacation schedules; coordination and communication challenges, not only due to not being co-located, but also due to different languages; and the impact of cultural differences between institutions, leading to different design and process approaches.…”

“…Challenges include scheduling difficulties due to different time zones and school vacation schedules; coordination and communication challenges, not only due to not being co-located, but also due to different languages; and the impact of cultural differences between institutions, leading to different design and process approaches. 3,4 The students find that defining and documenting interfaces becomes even more important when geographically separated. 3 In this paper we will look at an example of a project with teams from three geographically separated colleges: The U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, and the U.S.…”

“…3,4 The students find that defining and documenting interfaces becomes even more important when geographically separated. 3 In this paper we will look at an example of a project with teams from three geographically separated colleges: The U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, and the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.…”