Bucknell University Mechanical Engineering
The Bucknell Mechanical Engineering Department is soliciting projects for its senior design capstone course. Preferred deadline for project ideas is July 15, with rolling review (first come, first served). If you don’t have a project, you can still support students in our department by making a gift.
Course Overview:
The goal of Mechanical Engineering Senior Design is to teach engineering design through the lens of an applied sponsored project, which exposes students to real-world engineering processes, systems, and products, and the experience of working with a real external client. Our primary mission as a university is to provide a high-quality education for our students, and thus the learning experience for students takes priority.
Over the course of two semesters, students bring disciplinary knowledge, skills, and competencies as well as a liberal arts background to solve a practical engineering problem and provide client solutions in a comprehensive fashion. Students learn to understand customer value propositions and respond to customer/client needs with creative solutions.
Project Scoping:
An ideal project for mechanical engineering senior design describes a compelling problem that can be solved through a primarily mechanical/thermal-fluid based solution where no obvious solution currently exists. Project proposals should focus on the problem that needs to be solved and not suggest specific solutions or approaches. Characteristics which define an ideal opportunity for a senior design project include:
- May be of high impact and/or high value to your organization and/or external stakeholders, but is not on your critical path
- Calls for project planning, technical analysis, financial justification, prototyping/simulation and testing.
- Has a strong design component, broadly defined, with well-defined and measurable objectives.
- Is open-ended; project description contains words such as design, synthesize and develop, rather than test, evaluate, modify, or demonstrate which are often associated with specific solutions.
- Is sufficiently developed so as not to require significant basic research but benefit from creative ideation and prototyping. Given our facilities and students’ experience, prototype or proof of concept projects (Technology Readiness Level of 4-7) are generally most successful.
- May be solved in numerous ways, so as to facilitate the design process.
Additional Considerations for Project Evaluation:
- Can you (the proposer) come up with at least three distinct possible solution ideas for this problem?
- Will a control system be required? If so, please describe what you envision.
- Can the proposed problem be solved by buying a (possibly expensive) off-the-shelf solution?
- This type of project often results in one-off prototypes that lack the robustness of a commercially available product. The project may still be viable if the project would add value (other than being less expensive) over the commercially available solution.
- What expertise must the students be able to obtain from their advisor(s) to complete the project?
- Are you open to having the design problem reformulated?
Approximate Course Timeline:
- Summer: Project ideas evaluated and offered projects identified
- Late-August: Classes start. Teams and projects will be assigned and students make contact.
- Early September: In person meetings/site visits with client as feasible.
- September – December: Project development and regular meetings with project mentors.
- January – February: Develop subsystems, refine designs.
- February – April: Subsystem demonstration and integration, prototype testing and design validation.
- April – May: Final system refinements, delivery of systems and documentation to clients and on-campus Engineering Design Expo.
Bucknell Resources:
Teams typically consist of 3-4 mechanical engineering seniors who are expected to engage with the course for 8+ hours per week per student. A faculty advisor assigned to the project will meet with the team weekly to help guide their progress. Access to Bucknell campus laboratories, college support staff, Product Development Lab machine shop, including CNC and water jet capabilities, Data Acquisition Systems (DAQ) for testing, etc.
Client Responsibilities:
- Provide designated mentor(s) as the points of contact for the design team. The mentor is expected to be available for up to 2 hours per week for discussion and feedback (email, phone, or video conferencing) with the team. Weekly meetings are encouraged.
- Attend the on-campus end of the year Engineering Design Expo.
- Help the students understand their problem and to give them feedback about their decisions throughout the process.
- Provide mentoring and flexibility as students learn to properly scope a project, grasp the larger context of the project and learn how to manage their time and communicate professionally.
- Assist with the coordination of site visits by faculty and design team members.
- Liaise between students, faculty, staff, and the sponsor’s legal department for discussion of intellectual property concerns, approval of information to be shared externally to Bucknell as well as during the Senior Design Expo, and concerning use of the sponsor’s logo.
- Responsible for sending project-related resources to Bucknell.
- Understand that as the students go through the design process the final solution may differ from what is envisioned, as we are not a job shop, but an educational institution.
If you have a Project Idea
If you are interested in submitting one or more ideas please contact Prof. Jonathan Torres (j.torres@bucknell.edu) with a brief description of potential projects. After we review the ideas we receive we will get back in touch if we believe the idea is feasible for a capstone project.