Building a Strong Foundation for Senior Design Courses

and its rich tradition of innovation and manufacturing.While much of the automotive manufacturing has left the Dayton area, there is no shortage of manufacturing, aerospace, medical, plastic, and other industrial enterprises in the area.Linkages between academics and industry have included, for decades, Industrial Advisory Committees, cooperative education, University of Dayton contracts, sabbatical connections, part-time faculty opportunities, industrial mentor programs, and many others, These connections, of course, made it quite natural as curricula began to move toward industry-sponsored projects for a senior-level course.In about 1991, Engineering Technology began including a capstone design project in its programs, and the model was working well enough that the School of Engineering decided to institutionalize it to include the engineering programs as well, In 1996, the University established the "Innovation Center" as a central resource for this type of venture, Today, individual courses are, of course, still headquartered academically in their home departments, but the Innovation Center acts as a common resource for all capstone projects, The Engineering Programs operate a bit differently than Engineering Technology, Students in Mechanical Engineering and Electrical Engineering both take a shared capstone which is a two-semester sequence typically divided into one semester of research and design, with a second semester focused on project build, Neither Civil nor Chemical engineering participate in an interdisciplinary course involving the Innovation Center.