ECE Department Capstone Project Program

Summary

Every senior in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at PSU must do an industry-based Senior Capstone Project to fulfill both the departmental degree requirements and the general University Studies requirement. For the last several years, U.S. News and World Report’s annual college survey has ranked PSU’s Capstone program as one of the best in the country. In surveys, our students consistently cite their capstone projects as one of the most rewarding and formative experiences of their undergraduate education.

The purposes of these projects are to give students the opportunity to:

  • apply their knowledge to solving real world problems
  • gain experience working as part of a multidisciplinary team
  • become actively involved in a company or other community organization

Companies or community organizations participating in these projects are referred to as community partners. A primary element of the ECE Capstone program is the participation of our community partners. We try each year to ensure that each student is afforded the opportunity to work as part of a design team on a real world project of interest and value to the sponsoring organization.

The process and timetable

The ECE Department solicits projects by early September. Community partners provide brief summaries of proposed projects by the 3rd week of September. Students review these and indicate which projects they are most interested in working on. Teams are then created on the basis of interest, ability, and background with an attempt to create balanced, diverse teams. Teams and faculty advisors are assigned to projects by the end of November. 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.
Students are expected to spend a portion of the winter break researching and clarifying their project with a goal of creating and presenting a project plan to the sponsor by the end of January. Work on the project continues through the winter and spring quarters with project completion by the 1st week of June when final project reports are submitted and presentations made to the community partners.

Benefits for community partners

  • You’ll have a chance to see and evaluate 3-5 potential hires over an extended period of time on a project of your choosing. After graduation, many of our students have been hired by the community partners with whom they worked on capstone projects.
  • Often the projects done by these student teams would not otherwise be developed due to lack of funding, time or other resources. Note that all results produced by students working on a project belong entirely to the community partner unless otherwise arranged. Students do not receive financial compensation for work on capstone projects.
  • Community partners play an active role in the education and development of engineers who can help solve real world problems.

Responsibilities of community partners

  • Provide a contact-person/coordinator who can provide a detailed description of the community partner's requirements, make arrangements for needed resources, and answer questions as they arise. Note that overall project supervision and grading will be done by a PSU faculty advisor in coordination with the community partner.
  • Actively participate in evaluation of the student’s work, providing feedback as necessary during the project and participating in assigning individual grades at the conclusion of the project.
  • Provide the resources needed to successfully do the project. Depending on the specific project, the list of resources may include parts, materials, a cubicle space, a computer, software, building access, etc.

Proposing projects

The projects are typically real-world design projects undertaken by teams of 3-5 students working with a community partner and a faculty advisor. The objective is to give students an opportunity to apply knowledge gained in their earlier core engineering curriculum as well as design project methodology and skills learned in the lecture part of the senior capstone sequence. Emphasis is on successful project completion, adherence to a disciplined design methodology, and consideration of the full project life-cycle.

  • The project should be substantial and needed but not part of a critical path required for continued success of the community partner. Every attempt will be made to produce a deliverable. While we have been very successful at this in the past, but we cannot guarantee success. Note that, if a particular project requires confidentiality, the students and the faculty advisor assigned to that project will be willing to sign Non-Disclosure Agreements and maintain confidentiality.
  • The project should be able to be completed in about 5 months by a team consisting of 3-5 seniors aided by a faculty advisor and by a representative of the community partner. Each student is expected to spend 8-10 hours per week working on the project for the five months.
  • The project should be able to be done with knowledge students already have and/or knowledge that they can reasonably acquire during the course of the project.
  • The project should have a substantial design component so students gain practice in as much of the design process as possible.
  • The project may be hardware-based, software-based, or a combination. Projects with a mechanical component may use teams with both ECE and Mechanical Engineering students.

Any company, community organization, or individual desiring to submit a project proposal should send a short (one page or less) project description to

Professor Mark G. Faust
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Portland State University
FAB 160-16
1900 SW Fourth Avenue
Portland, Oregon, 97201
email: faustm@ece.pdx.edu
phone: 503-725-5412

Call or e-mail Mark if you have any questions. We like to have project proposals by October 1st, if possible. However, if you have a project but need a little more time, just let us know.To increase the likelihood of a project being chosen, the project description should attempt to evoke the student’s interest and creative imagination. If there are particular skills that students on the project should have or that you think would be useful, please note these in the project proposal and we’ll attempt to match students accordingly. Also, to help us comply with Oregon state law, please include answers to the following two questions in your project proposal.
Drug screening required? [Yes/No] Non-Disclosure Agreement required? [Yes/No]

Student preparation and responsibilities

In the ECE Department the Senior Capstone Project is a three quarter sequence. To enter the capstone sequence, students must have achieved senior standing. Students take a lecture course in the fall quarter which introduces them to engineering design project methodology. During the winter and spring quarters, students complete and document their projects. Student teams are responsible for finalizing, summarizing, and confirming the project requirements, creating a project plan and presenting it for approval, completing the design project and related documentation, testing, writing a final project report, and making a final project presentation to the community partner.

We expect our students to:

  • Practice a systematic and thorough design methodology – no “hacking”
    This is solidly covered in the ECE 411 class but, as you all know, it will take a dedicated effort on our parts to help the students follow this methodology.
  • Make a serious effort to complete the project
    To keep the projects moving, it will be necessary to help the students set intermediate goals and timelines for achieving those goals then hold the students responsible for meeting the timelines. Each student is expected to spend 8-10 hours per week on the project and give you an individual written weekly progress report (WPR).
  • Do detailed and thorough documentation of all work
    Documentation will play an important part in the grading for the ECE 412 and ECE 413 classes. Each group is required to produce a Product Design Specification (Project Proposal). Each individual student is required to keep a complete design log of his/her work. The log will contain all specifications, research, thoughts, design work, experiments, conclusions, meeting agendas, meeting minutes, email, reference information, etc. The ECE Department capstone web site contains details on what we recommend students include in their logs and WPRs. Please feel free to add to this list as you see fit. The team is required to write a final report that contains all of the detailed design for the project and would allow someone to continue with the project as desired.
  • Work at developing more effective oral/written communication
    Each student will be required to submit a written weekly progress report (WPR) to both the community partner and the faculty advisor. Also, each group is required to make an oral project proposal presentation, an oral intermediate progress report or design review as appropriate, and a final oral report. Ideally students should have the chance to individually make at least one oral weekly progress report. Our capstone web site includes forms for the evaluation of the capstone project presentations and the overall project. Please feel free to use/modify them as you wish.

Ensuring project success

Some things you can do to help ensure successful completion of the project:

  • At the first meeting, have everyone sign any required NDA documents
    We have discussed NDAs at length in the ECE 411 class, but please make sure the students understand that this is not just a formality. Also please sign the University Capstone agreement provided by the PSU Faculty Advisor. One purpose of this form is to indicate that we will try our best to produce a deliverable but we can't promise that we will succeed.
  • Determine the environment where the project will be developed
    Most companies provide a cubicle or other workspace, computer accounts as needed, and appropriate access privileges. Some companies have put the teams through the entire new-hire process to help get them used to the company products, rules, culture, etc. If space at the company is not possible, we do have very strong windows XP and Unix based computer resources at PSU, as well as state-of-the-art electronic hardware labs. Also, we have a small Capstone Project workshop with test equipment, soldering stations, etc. This workshop is keyed and is reasonably secure, but it is usually shared by a couple of teams, so we cannot completely guarantee confidentiality.
  • Work with the students to start defining the goals of the project
    In most cases the projects are only loosely defined at this point. The understanding is that after some research and discussion, the team will actively help define the actual problem that will be solved. As part of the EE411 class, project groups will be developing a formal Product Design Specification (Project Proposals). Note: For a project covered by an NDA, only the community partner and the faculty advisor will see the PDS and the oral presentation.
  • Actively and candidly participate in evaluation of the students’ work
    As indicated above, the students will only be working part-time on the projects, but it important that the quality of their work be evaluated on the same basis as that of any new hire, even though the expected rate of progress will, of course, be different.
  • Maintain clear and constant communication with the PSU Faculty Advisor
    This will make it possible to solve any problems quickly.
  • Visit us!
    If you have not already done so, stop by the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at PSU to meet us and to get a tour of our new and impressive labs. You can call or e-mail Mark or talk with your project’s faculty advisor to arrange a convenient time for a visit.

Grading

Individual grades are based upon:

  • Successful completion of the project
  • Adherence to a disciplined design methodology
  • Project proposal (PDS) and presentation
  • Effective communication throughout the project
    • weekly written progress reports
    • team meetings
    • engineering logbooks
    • project notebooks
  • Final project report and oral presentation
  • Individual contribution to the project’s success

While the final grade is assigned by the faculty advisor, the community partner’s recommendations are given particular weight so we ask you to complete a brief final project evaluation form for each student. There is also a form for evaluating the final project presentation which you can use.