2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) requires inclusion of a capstone project to baccalaureate engineering technology programs. Capstone project courses integrate technical and non-technical skills from coursework with project management skills. A capstone project requires the solution of open-ended engineering problems with imposed constraints and has clearly defined goals and deliverables. Past practice at the University of New Hampshire at Manchester (UNHM) was to solicit industry sponsored projects from industry partners. Several difficulties arose with industry projects: lack of an adequate number of projects, limited faculty control over project scope, project funding changes, industry personnel changes, and team versus individual student on a project. An alternative method was desired to provide an entire class with a common college sponsored project. The solution chosen was the VEX U college level robotics competition. This paper describes the implementation of the VEX U robotic competition at UNHM as the capstone project.

During the past three years the capstone course has used this competition. An initial investment purchased 10 robot kits and a competition field. This outfits a class size of 25 students working in 5 teams. The first-year implementation cost was approximately $1200 per student and the second and third-year cost under $400 per student. With the outbreak of the COVID pandemic and safety restrictions occurring just prior to the first year of implementation, this choice was timely and allowed the college to provide a capstone project for a full class of students. Faculty had the ability to control and adapt the project as needed. During the second-year, restrictions eased, and faculty again adapted the project. All students were required to participate as a member of a team. Each team planned, designed, built, programmed, and tested two robots to compete in a final end-of-course competition following the established constraints and rules from the published game manual. Faculty had the option to include additional constraint requirements within game rule criteria. The competition at the end of the course can be tailored to be an official VEX event or a stand-alone event for the college course students only. Due to COVID restrictions, stand-alone competitions were held. The first year, small elimination type competitions were held due to student room space restrictions. The second and third year, a single competition event was held which included spectator attendance.

Despite the pandemic and restrictions imposed, a successful capstone project was provided for each student. If the industry project model had been used, it is doubtful that all students in the course would have had successful projects. An important ABET student outcome is the ability for students to work on a team. This is accomplished with the common project model as all students are required to work on a team. Faculty has considerable control over the project which was not possible with the industry project model. While still utilizing the published game manual rules, milestones can be implemented over the course for each semester such as design reviews, robot function demonstration and testing, practice competitions, and team presentations.