Instructor: Dr Robert Reese
Email: reese@ece.msstate.edu
Office: 337 Simrall
Phone: (662) 325-3154
Fax: (662) 325-2298

Lab TA: Eric W. Tramel
Office: Senior Design Lab (Simrall 311)
Office Hours:T,Th 1:30-4:30 P.M
Email: ewt16@msstate.edu

ECE 4512 (EE) / ECE 4532 (CPE) Senior Design I

EE/CPE Senior Design I is the first course in a two-semester sequence that constitutes the capstone design experience for undergraduate electrical and computer engineers. ABET engineering accreditation criteria states:

"Students must be prepared for engineering practice through the curriculum culminating in a major design experience based on the knowledge and skills acquired in earlier course work and incorporating appropriate engineering standards and multiple realistic constraints."

The criteria further identifies

"realistic contrants such as economic, environmental, social, ethical, health and safety, manufacturability, and sustainability."

Your design project is expected to address as many of these issues as possible. In this portion of the course, students will be expected to identify a team project, and complete the design and simulation phases of the project. The course will culminate with a presentation of the proposed project to a design review committee, a demonstration of a hardware prototype, and a detailed design document that clearly documents all aspects of the design process.

ECE 4512 (EE) / ECE 4532 (CPE) Senior Design II

EE/CPE Senior Design II is a continuation of the capstone design experience for undergraduate electrical engineers. In this portion of the course, students will be expected to fabricate their design, test and evaluate the design against their design specifications, and demonstrate a fully functional project to their design review committee.

Course Objectives

1. explain the difference between a team and a workgroup
   
2. list characteristics of successful teams
   
3. distinguish five modes of handling team conflicts and how they may be useful or harmful
   
4. list characteristics of effective leaders
   
5. identity key reasons why projects fail or succeed
   
6. write a team charter
   
7. implement ground rules for effective meetings and demonstrate their use
   
8. explain the motivation for using standards
   
9. classify the cost components in a design and project a realistic price to the customer
   
10. optimize a design for sustainability
    
11. present a professional presentation with strong technical content and audience interaction
    
12. execute efficient and effective team meeting and maintain meeting minutes
    
13. interact efficiently and effectively with faculty advisor
    
14. formulate a defensible design approach
    
15. evaluate, design, and optimize custom hardware and software individually and as a team
    
16. create an objective, testable design specification
    
17. create and follow a test plan leading to a functional design
    
18. write a professional project report
    
19. design and create a project poster
    
20. create a professional team Web site
    
21. apply critical path scheduling
    
22. apply entrepreneurial thinking in the context of a design project
    
23. create a business plan
    
24. apply ethical reasoning

The structure of the course for electrical and computer engineers is essentially the same since we follow the same design process. Computer engineering projects, however, must have both a software and hardware component. Electrical engineering projects most often have both, but occasionally focus only on hardware.