Interdisciplinary capstone group project

Abstract

AbsBactWe, the authors, have each managed group projects for our respective senior majors for some time. Three years ago we combined the senior courses and each project team is now composed of both computer science and engineering majors. We were motivated by the desire to broaden the senior experience in both disciplines as well as to use the projects to attract prospective majors. The most recent project was to bnild autonomous line-tracking vehicles for racing. Since the computer scientists do not necessarily have any exposure to analog circuits and the engineers have only limited knowledge, it was necessary to provide an environment that required little analog design. The Handy Board [7] proved to be a useful part of that environment. This paper discusses our experience teaching an interdisciplinary group project-oriented course, discusses strengths and weaknesses of using the Handy Board in this context, and draws some conclusions based on our experience.