CE 175: Senior Capstone Design Course 2009
Overview
We will be working on real-world service-learning engineering problems for this course,
analyzing, evaluating and developing a design that incorporates both engineering and other
aspects of the problem into the final solution. We will use a lecture/discussion/studio format for
the class, meaning that much of the class time will be devoted to working with your team on
your projects. Invited speakers and mini-lectures will occur in the early part of the semester. You
will also all be presenting 5-7 minute talks. Because of the studio format, it is critical that
everyone comes to class, and comes prepared so that they can participate in the various activities.
Think of this as regular meetings at your job. You don’t miss those except for emergency
type situations. The class time will be roughly divided as shown.
Activity
Project work time, also includes oral presentations to the class, peer review
work, class assignments related to the project
Group discussions/guided activities
Lectures
Instructor
Office Hours
Texts
Class time
50 % of class
time
25%
25%
Dr. Mandar Dewoolkar, P.E. (mandar@cems.uvm.edu ).
Open door policy and by appointment
Handouts
Course Goals
The goal of this course is to provide an opportunity for students to experience and learn
about engineering “project work” while actually doing it. The different facets of “project work”
range from technical problem solving and design, to interpersonal and personal skills. Enhancing
your experience and learning of teamwork skills, effective communication, and decision-making
will be just as important as the technical design aspects of the course. In addition, the social,
political, environmental, and economic aspects of the project will be key components of your
final report.
Community Service-Learning Projects
This course is structured around projects with real community and nonprofit partners in a
service-learning format. Service-learning is a form of experiential education in which students
engage in activities that address human and community needs together with structured
opportunities intentionally designed to promote student learning and development. Servicelearning research has shown positive impacts on student learning and development, in areas such
as academic and intellectual development, civic engagement, career development, ethical
judgment, and personal/interpersonal skills.
Structured critical reflection is a key component of service-learning that should be
included as part of the service-learning activity. The idea is to help students get more from the
experience by reflecting, integrating and synthesizing the experience with academic goals of the
course, as well as personal/interpersonal goals and civic engagement goals. During reflection
activities students describe the experience objectively, analyze the experience from the aspect of
personal/interpersonal goals, academic goals and civic engagement goals, and articulate the
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actual learning and why it is important. Think of this as “What,” “So What,” and “Now what?”
Course logbooks, group and class discussions and presentations will be used in this course in
order to make the experience more meaningful.
Course logbooks (a small spiral or composition notebook) need to be brought to each
class, as we will use them for various writing and reflecting exercises. They are worth 5% of
your grade.
Interpersonal and Personal Skills
Teamwork is an important component of engineering project work. The most successful
teams are those in which 1) team members work together toward a common goal, something
beyond their individual achievements, 2) all members hold themselves accountable for doing
high quality work, 3) members do real work together, and help, share, explain and encourage
each other’s efforts and accomplishments, 4) members coordinate their efforts and share
responsibility for providing leadership, developing communication and conflict-management
skills, and 5) teams perform periodic assessment of their efforts and how well members are
working together and toward their shared goal. We will be working in cooperative teams for the
semester project.
We will be spending a fair amount of time in the beginning of the semester dealing with
teams and teamwork. Other important benefits of teamwork are that it enhances skills in
leadership, consensus building and decision-making.
Oral and Written Communication skills are critical skills for civil and environmental
engineers. For practicing engineers, the average time spent in writing activities is about 40%.
Communicating your ideas should not be a chore but hopefully an enjoyable part of the process.
Practice is the best way to develop good written and oral presentation skills, and so we will be
doing plenty of both.
We will be using peer review, which is a very common technique used by engineers and
scientists. Not only does it enhance the final product of someone else’s work, but it also sharpens
our own writing and rewriting skills.
Non-technical Aspects of Project such as the social, political, regulatory, environmental
and economic impacts of a proposed project will need to be investigated and integrated into the
final project design. Most engineering projects take a one-sided or lop-sided approach to dealing
with the problem. Short-term economic gains typically win out over long-term environmental
stewardship and human-health costs. This kind of shortsighted engineering has been and
continues to be a major contributor to environmental devastation both in this country and around
the world. Therefore, these non-technical aspects will play a key role in our approach to the
problem definition and problem solution.
Team Binder is required for each team. This will consist of a three-ring binder that includes
field notes, meeting notes, research and other pertinent project information. It needs to be well
organized. Billable and administrative hours will also be included with a divider for that section.
These will be turned in every two weeks. Each team will need to assign a team secretary who is
in charge of the binder. There will also be meeting minutes taken at all project meetings, which
will be included in the project binder under a separate section.
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Anticipated Timeline
Generally, there will be weekly (or daily) assignments and/or progress reports that will be
due, or shared with team members, review teams, faculty or the entire group. These will all be
graded and count toward your final grade. The final draft report will be due on April 18. Final
oral presentations will be on Thursday, April 30 (from about 8:00-4:30 pm so if you have a
conflict, please talk to me early and we may be able to make some scheduling adjustments). The
community partners, faculty as well as a number of local engineering consultants will attend, ask
questions, and provide feedback on the presentations. The final written report and marked up
draft copies will be due May 6th (4:30 pm).
Grading
Activity
Project Work – This will include all progress reports, timelines, final written
report, final marked-up draft report, and any other class assignments. (We will
evaluate all work on format, GUMS, nontechnical integration (as requested),
figures and tables, and design calculations and design work. Various faculty
members and consultants will also evaluate the project and provide comments on
the quality and innovation of the design, as well as the written presentation. We
will consider their input in our evaluation.) Team Binder worth 5%. Course
logbook worth 5%.
Oral Presentations (Clarity, professionalism of the presentation are primary criteria,
technical and non-technical aspects, as well as enthusiasm and preparation of the
presenters). This includes both individual (5 %) and group.
Participation, Professionalism and Attendance - Participation includes being on
time, contributing to group discussions, and proper attentiveness and respect to
presenters including course colleagues. Attendance will be taken daily. Three
unexcused absences will discount your grade by 5%, five by 10% and so on.
Medical/family emergencies and job interviews are legitimate, but please let us
know by email or telephone ahead of time. Thanks.
% grade
70%
15%
15%
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