The main goal of the senior design experience is embodied in this statement found in the ABET handbook on accrediting engineering programs:
- "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 engineering standards and realistic constraints that include most of the following considerations: economic; environmental; sustainability; manufacturability; ethical; health and safety; social; and political."
In Mississippi State University's College of Engineering, we also stress the entrepreneurial nature of this process, and prefer to see students exposed to entrepreneurial aspects of the process, including market-driven problem statements and design objectives that stem from a need to solve a real world problem. Unfortunately, too often students, in their youthful exuberance, create over-ambitious projects that involve extremely complicated systems, and require immense amounts of system integration. So what is the essence of a good senior design project?
First and foremost, the students must demonstrate the engineering design cycle.
Students must ultimately answer the question: "What is the design content in this project?" As Professor James C. Harden, MSU's former ECE Department Head states, "Students should define and solve some problem rather than explore technology." The focus of the course project is not how ingenious your invention is, or whether you have completely functional hardware, but whether you have demonstrated a good command of essential engineering skills in implementing your idea. For example, demonstration that your simulations, prototype, and packaged hardware all satisfy critical design constraints is extremely important. Verification that your design performs as theory has predicted is essential. In the event that your hardware does not work properly, did you use good engineering skills to debug and improve your hardware? In short, first-time success is not nearly as important as overcoming your initial failures through good engineering.
What are the most common mistakes made by senior design teams?
- Having a poor mix of design skills. Successful teams share two distinct qualities: everyone pulls their weight and all skills required for the project exist within the team (or the skills can be acquired fairly quickly). Too often teams embark on projects that require software expertise, yet they do not have a software person on the team. Similarly, often groups decide on a project that loosely relates to their field of interest (for example, wireless control of a power switching system) and yet do not have a communications or electronics person on the team (and hence are missing the key skills it will take to make this project work).
- Choosing the wrong adviser. Too often, students select a theoretician as an adviser, and then come to him or her with questions such as "Why does my microprocessor reset when I set pin 7 high?" or "What type of transistor should I use to amplify a 1 volt signal and deliver 100 watts of power?" When their adviser looks slightly disorientated, and replies "Hmmm, that does sound like an interesting question." students are often disappointed. Some faculty enjoy getting their hands dirty in the lab working with students; others prefer to challenge students on theoretical aspects of the problem and expect students to find other resources to deal with hardware issues. Students should shop their ideas around to several faculty, and choose the faculty member that they feel will best fit the unique needs of their project. (Note that this experience is good practice for your first job search - make sure you talk to the person for whom you will be working!)
- Not doing enough early planning work. The first semester is the critical semester - this is when the design work is done. Your team needs to have a fairly clear vision at the beginning of the semester of the possible alternatives for accomplishing the design, with only a couple of murky spots where you may need to do some fast learning about a new technology.
- Not doing enough work in the first semester. A requirement of the first semester is to have a working prototype at the end of the first semester. If your team does not meet this requirement, then you will be asked to do additional work between semesters. If you have not shown enough progress before the start of the second semester, then the team will not be allowed to enroll for the second semester. The reasons that a team does not produce a working prototype is usually due to either lack of effort by the team, or because not enough early planning was done and major design changes are made late in the first semester, causing the prototype to fail. If you have done a good job in the first semester, then the second semester load is greatly reduced as you are just adding minor tweaks to your design and packaging the design.
- Team members are overloaded with course work in the first semester of senior design. As stated earlier, the first semester is the key semester - this is when the design is actually performed. As such, plan the other courses that you take with the first semester of senior design very carefully. Do not take four other courses that all require significant out-of-class work, or your other team members will become tired of hearing about "how busy you are with your other courses, and that you do not have time to contribute to the design".
Other common questions about senior design.
- What is the relationship between Technical Writing (GE 3513) and Senior Design I? To reduce the overall course load of Senior Design, the ECE department and the English department have worked together to integrate the writing requirements of Technical Writing (GE 3513) with the writing requirements of Senior Design I. You must be enrolled in GE 3513 and Senior Design I concurrently so that these two courses can work together. The design document that you write in Senior Design I is used to fulfill most of the writing requirements of Technical Writing. You will not be given permission to register for either GE 3513 or Senior Design I until you have met with the senior design I instructor and your proposal is approved. The ECE/CPE Senior Design section of GE 3513 has typically been Section 06, on Tues/Thursday at 12:30. After being given permission to register, you must add the class yourself - you will not be placed into the class automatically.
- What is the SECON competition team? Each year, the department sponsors an IEEE Southeastcon competition team; in the past this team has been composed of two teams of four members. The competition is held in March of each year. For an example of a typical competition, visit the SECON 2016 site and look at the student program's hardware competition. The advantage of being on the SECON team is that the department sponsors the team in terms of project manufacture and travel cost, and the problem is already stated for you. The disadvantage is that the problem difficulty is typically high, and that the team must be ready to compete in the middle of the Design II semester, so the team does not have as long to finish their project as do other Senior Design teams. MSU teams have been very successful in this competition, winning it in 2005 and in 2003. If you are interested, the team should be formed in the spring so that you will be ready to go in the fall. Talk with the department head and/or senior design instructor about your intentions to participate in the SECON competition.
- Does our team have to pay for parts? In general, the department covers reasonable parts/PCB costs for teams (reasonable means on the average, about $200 per team per semester). See this page for more information about ordering parts for use on your project. The department does support the parts funding for the SECON competition team.