Using Professional Mentors For Capstone Design Projects At A Distance

For over ten years, the University of Hartford’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering has used professional engineers from the local region as mentors for capstone design projects. The mentor is asked to propose a candidate project, and if the project is selected by a student group, to oversee its technical direction. The mentors become role models for the students, and by allowing students to visit their offices and job sites, give the design teams a glimpse of engineers at work. Past course evaluations by both the students and mentors show a high degree of satisfaction with the experience. Recently, the department set up a web site that encourages alums to post information about themselves. Most cited recent or current job experience. Some were so interesting, that we thought they would make excellent capstone projects – except that they were not local. With a willing alum, and recognizing that we would have to use several forms of communication, we formulated a project using a mentor-at-a-distance. The project selected involved the design of a highway bridge located in Chesapeake, Virginia. Parsons, Brinckerhoff, Quade and Douglas, Inc. from Norfolk, Virginia, for whom our mentor worked, was responsible for designing the bridge. They provided site drawings, copies of specifications, and other design materials. Under the guidance of the mentor, the students designed an interior beam and the roadway slab, using AASHTO’s (American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials) 16 Edition of the Standard Specifications for Highway Bridges, and VDOT (Virginia Department of Transportation) modifications to AASHTO’s standard specifications. The results of a course assessment questionnaire indicate that engineering, communication and computer skills were enhanced while management skills were not.