Delivery and Assessment of the Biomedical Engineering Capstone Senior Design Experience

The capstone design course is the most important experience engineering students have during their undergraduate academic careers. The capstone design sequence at Florida International University consists of three courses for a total of 7 credit-hours over two semesters. Significant effort by the entire faculty is required for a successful outcome and to ensure that all students receive a “major design experience” and that there is consistency in expectations and outcomes among the students and croups. One of the creative components of the program at FIU is that near the end of the first semester of the senior design course sequence a committee of faculty members reviews each group’s project design written proposal and critiques a 20 minute oral presentation of their proposal during about 40 minutes of questioning. The team’s company sponsor and faculty advisor also attends and participates in the oral proposal defense. The faculty panel then approves the project, does not approve the project, or suggests an expansion or reduction in the scope. Close coordination with the company or faculty advisor ensures that the project meets the curriculum requirements of the program and that the scope of the project is realistic. An assessment tool is completed by each panel member, which is also used to provide input for the students’ grades. In the second semester students complete the project and give a written report and oral presentation to a panel made up of members of the department’s Industry Advisory Board. Students attend weekly lectures by experts on various topics critical to the success of practicing engineers, including regulatory, intellectual property, marketing, prototyping, responsible conduct of research, and others. These sessions also serve to monitor student and team progress. Multiple assessment tools are used to evaluate student learning. Other assessment tools, such as a Self-&-Peer evaluation and a Work Effort Certification are used to assess team work. This paper describes the individual topics of the course, the assessment tools used, and the outcomes over the past 6 years.