Engineering-Based Senior Designs
A real need. Defensible decisions. Evidence that the design works.
Senior design brings students, faculty, and industry collaborators together around a practical engineering need. Students integrate their technical education into a purposeful engineering solution, supported by faculty guidance and industry experience. The learning resides in the decisions, analysis, iteration, and evidence—not simply in producing an object.
What counts as engineering design?
ABET describes engineering design as an iterative decision process that applies mathematics, basic sciences, and engineering sciences to meet needs within constraints. It includes alternatives, analysis, risk, and tradeoffs. Its engineering curriculum criteria require a culminating design experience drawing on earlier coursework and incorporating relevant standards and multiple constraints. Read the official criteria.
For this initiative, an acceptable project proposal offers a genuine need, scope for meaningful student decisions, sufficient disciplinary depth, feasible resources, and a credible verification plan. This is our educational screening approach; faculty determine suitability under their own curriculum and applicable criteria.
A useful project passes six questions
| Question | Evidence to seek |
|---|---|
| Is there a real need? | Identified users, observed problem, current process, and consequences. |
| Must students design? | More than one feasible approach and tradeoffs requiring engineering judgment. |
| Is there technical depth? | Calculations, models, experiments, or simulations tied to prior coursework. |
| Are constraints meaningful? | Cost, safety, space, manufacturing, maintenance, environment, or schedule. |
| Are standards addressed? | Relevant codes or standards identified, with edition and applicability explained. |
| Can success be evaluated? | Quantitative requirements and a feasible verification or validation method. |
A literature survey, assembly of a kit, or purchase recommendation alone would generally be insufficient under this screening approach. Any can contribute to a broader project when substantial student engineering design remains.
An illustrative Arkansas project
Need: A small processor experiences inconsistent package positioning before inspection.
Students could characterize the existing line, develop alternative positioning mechanisms, analyze loads and motion, select materials, and design a guarded prototype. Illustrative targets might include a specified placement tolerance, throughput, cleaning time, footprint, and budget; students and faculty would establish defensible values with the sponsor.
Verification could compare measured position errors and cycle times against requirements. Safety review would address pinch points, isolation of energy, access, and foreseeable misuse before testing. Food-contact or sanitation requirements would need appropriate specialist review. This is a teaching concept, not a commissioned project.
A practical sequence
- Discover: Interview users, observe the process, establish a baseline.
- Define: Agree on scope, measurable requirements, constraints, and responsibilities.
- Explore: Generate alternatives and compare them against explicit criteria.
- Engineer: Analyze, model, detail, and review the proposed design.
- Verify: Test requirements, quantify uncertainty, and document discrepancies.
- Improve and hand over: Iterate, report limitations, and deliver usable records.
How 5thN.org seeks to help
The initiative seeks to help faculty, industry, and students develop shared project briefs, connect with prospective collaborators, share planning tools, and hold productive design reviews. University faculty retain responsibility for course content, project acceptance, supervision, grading, and accreditation evidence. External mentors guide and challenge; students perform and explain the engineering work.
Continue to ABET alignment, industry needs, and the downloadable toolkit.