Students

Program Objectives

Exposing students to real-world engineering design problems is the goal of multidisciplinary capstone design projects. Students are given the opportunity to contribute their area of expertise to a real product or solution while interfacing with company liaisons, working with students of other disciplines, and receiving faculty coaching. Students’ learning is further enhanced through client design reviews, sharing of historical information, and contribution of domain-specific knowledge. Both students and companies benefit: students gain hands-on industrial experience and companies receive high-value solutions to practical problems. One of the primary learning objectives is to practice a formal design process. This approach incorporates the following elements into the program of study:

• Problem Identification
• Requirements and Specifications
• Concept Design
• Detail Design
• Prototyping - Physical or Modeling
• Validation
• Final Documentation and Recommendations

 

 

Further Objectives include the development of professional skills:

By applying their academic and internship background to experiential problem-solving, students develop a number of professional skills while learning to work with a broad range of people. This enhances their competence, increases their confidence, and better prepares them to enter the workplace. Skills developed include:

• Practical, value-based problem-solving

• Professional oral and written communication

• Engineering and business ethics

• Teamwork and project management

 

 

Capstone Project Overview

The capstone program includes a broad array of projects with something to meet everyone’s interests. Interested students should be able to find a project that piques their interest, helps clarify career goals, and provide a valuable industry experience to share with prospective employers. For a description of current and past projects, please see the projects tab.

 

 

Capstone Course Sequence

The Multidisciplinary Capstone program follows a 6 credit hour sequence. These classes are taken in the Autumn and Spring semesters consecutively.

 

For more information, please contact Bob Rhoads, Director Multidisciplinary Design Capstone. 

Department of Engineering Education
614-292-9340
rhoads.2@osu.edu

 

Eligibility

Students who participate in the multidisciplinary capstone projects should be advanced enough in their major to be able to apply their coursework to the projects in a team of students who may be relying on individual expertise, as they will be from different majors. Therefore, students who are accepted into the program are usually nearing the end of their studies. As soon as students meet the eligibility requirements for the capstone course within their department, they can request to enroll in the multidisciplinary capstone program.

 

Student Enrollment Materials:

Students interested in becoming involved in the multidisciplinary capstone program needs to complete a survey that includes the following materials:

• Your major and planned graduation semester/year
• A brief description of why you are interested in this course

Please click here to complete the application survey.