EECS 398 & EECS 399:

Senior Project I, II

Summer 2005, Prof. Frank Merat

General Information

Formal Class Time: Monday 11am-12 noon, Glennan 518. Time will be changed later to accommodate student schedules.

Course Instructor: Frank Merat, flm at case.edu, Glennan 518, x4572

Instructor's Office Hours: By appointment.

Course T.A.: N/A

T.A.'s Office Hours: N/A

Recommended Text

• Mark N. Horenstein. Design Concepts for Engineers. Prentice-Hall, 2000. ISBN:0-13-081369-9.

  Buy it for $22 (new) from www.bn.com: Design Concepts for Engineers

Course Overview

This class exposes the student to a complete engineering project with emphasis on engineering design. It also includes profession ethics and responsibility, technical management, report writing and other topics which a practicing engineer should know.

These are what are commonly called “capstone design projects” which emphasize self-reliance and design innovation based upon your engineering and science education during your prior years in the university. Projects may be software, hardware, or a combination of both. Faculty members serve as project consultants and technical mentors. Students are required to write formal reports on their work which are graded for style and content. A formal oral presentation on the final results is required.

As the summer semester is so short, it is MOST IMPORTANT that you find a suitable project within one week. Furthermore, many projects are put in a “wait-state” while special ordered parts make their way slowly to the project engineers, so get your designs done as quickly as possible.

Finally, you should think of your projects as being performed on your first job for your supervisor. He will not tolerate late reports!

Course Requirements

You are expected to participate in class discussions relating to your and other projects. There is a required ethics paper. You will also be graded upon your various written papers, including a final report, and you presentation abilities.

What is design?

A key requirement of this course is that you learn what design is, and how to design.

Industrial/CO-OP credit

If you believe you have performed summeror CO-OP work which contains significant design you may receive credit for the technical part of one semester of senior project. You should prepare an abstract of your project work and discuss it with the instructor responsible for senior project in the semester when you return to Case. The senior project instructor will be the final authority on deciding if your project has adequate technical and design content for senior project credit.

If you receive credit for the technical component of one semester of senior project you will still be responsible for the non-technical contact of the class (i.e., ethics papers,patent disclosure, etc.) as defined by the course instructor.

You are also responsible for preparing a final project report and making an oral presentation of your work. These will follow the formats required of other senior project students in that semester and will typically be presented at the beginning of the semester in which you return to Case.

In all cases, you must receive written permission from your supervisor to use your work product for senior project credit. We are more interested in the design process, so it is very reasonable to keep proprietary/confidential material out of the report and presentation required for the senior project class.