Examining the Structure of a Multidisciplinary Engineering Capstone Design Program

The Engineering Education Innovation Center at The Ohio State University offers students an option to their traditional capstone design course by providing a Multidisciplinary Capstone Design course where teams work on company-sponsored projects. Teams include both engineering and non-engineering students and projects include product, process, and system design opportunities. This active learning opportunity allows students to apply their academic, professional, and practical skills to real-world problem solving. This two-semester program begins with a seven-week pre-capstone course. During this time the capstone coordinators form teams based on student preference and disciplines appropriate to the project scope. The coordinators assign a faculty advisor and identify an industry liaison to provide leadership and coaching throughout the project. The program enhances critical thinking skills by providing open-ended projects. By following a basic engineering design process, students develop several critical professional skills including oral and written communication, professional working relationships, project and time management, and ethics along with a broad understanding of the interrelationship of business, engineering, and design elements. The design process includes: defining the problem, creating the requirements, creating design concepts, developing detailed specifications, creating a detailed design solution, building a prototype, validating the design, refining the design, documenting the design process, and identifying future recommendations. Teams deliver multiple design reports and formal oral presentations to the class, advisors, and industry sponsors. The instructors continually solicit industry and departmental feedback to enrich the students’ experience and better prepare them for their careers. We recently surveyed 370 graduates of the multidisciplinary program ranging in experience levels from one to five years. The survey compared the key needs of industry with the success of the program in meeting these needs. This paper addresses the quantitative results of the survey and describes the current program’s structure. The authors focus on learning outcomes that include “an ability to function on multidisciplinary teams” (ABET Criteria 3d), “an ability to communicate effectively” (ABET Criteria 3g), and “the ability to manage an engineering project.” The authors also compare the survey results of multidisciplinary alumni to the general population of engineering alumni to provide insight into the effectiveness of the multidisciplinary program in achieving industry needs.