Faculty

Whether you're a new faculty member or it's just been a while since you've been the advisor to a student capstone team, this page should help you understand your role. In addition to the information presented here, you may want to review the other portions of this web site to understand what is expected of the students and community partners as well.

If you have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to contact the ECE Capstone Program Coordinator. During the course of the project, non-project specific issues may arise (e.g. team dynamics, issues involving the industry sponsor, etc). If you would like me to get involved, please let me know.

Initial Team Meeting

Faculty advisors are encouraged to arrange and attend the first meeting between their team and the community partner in December, before the end of the quarter to clarify the project requirements, sign NDAs if required, arrange for any partner-required orientation or safety training, and receive badges if necessary.

Once the teams have been assigned (typically immediately following Thanksgiving break), individual team members should be contacting you. You'll also receive the contact information for the industry sponsor at that time.

Weekly Progress Reports (WPRs)

You should receive weekly communication from the team in the form of Weekly Progress Reports (WPRs) from each team member in the form of an e-mail to you and the rest of the team (including the industry advisor). If you are not receiving these, warn your team that these are an essential part of their project (and grade). For details on the suggested WPR format and contents, click here.

Engineering Logbooks

Each student should be maintaining an engineering logbook throughout project. They will turn these in along with their final project report. However, it would be helpful for you to review these periodically, especially during the early part of the project to ensure they get a good start on these. The essential thing is that they are being maintained as contemporaneous logs of their design work. For more information on engineering log books, click here.

Regular Meetings

It's a good idea to have a standing meeting time (weekly or biweekly, at your discretion) with your team. You can use this to discuss technical issues, review progress, examine engineering logbooks, etc.

Team Dynamics

We spend several lectures on team dynamics. Unless specifically asked to intervene, or you see a train wreck in the making, encourage your team to sort out their difficulties or differences themselves.

Problems

If you have a team member who is not contributing to the project, speak with them and remind them that students can be "fired" from projects for non-performance. If the problem persists, please let me know.

Final Project Presentation

Each team will make a joint final project presentation to be attended by you and the industry advisor and others that you both may invite subject to NDA requirements. Along with the final project report, this will serve as a basis for their final grade. A form that we've used in the past to evaluate the presentations will aid consistency and communicate a common set of expectations for each team.

Grading

Students are assigned individual grades based upon:

While the final grade is assigned by the faculty advisor, the community partner's recommendations are given particular weight so we ask them to complete a brief evaluation for each student also. For consistency across projects, we suggest that you and the industry sponsor use the same final grade form.

Please turn these forms in along with the project report, project notebooks, engineering logbooks, and individual contribution statements provided by the students to the capstone coordinator at least 24 hours before the spring quarter grading deadline.

Note that because projects span two quarters, students receive an incomplete (I) for ECE 412. When their grade is submitted for ECE 413 at the conclusion of the project, the I grade for ECE 412 is replaced with the ECE 413 final grade.

ECE Department Capstone Project Program

Responsibilities