2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Interdisciplinary capstone projects have been used in engineering education to provide students an opportunity to collaborate on a project with students from other disciplines that are different from their own. A few of the perceived benefits of such an experience are students developing a creative problem-solving approach, learning to communicate and collaborate with individuals outside of their major, increased understanding of the connections between different technical topics, and a deeper appreciation of other disciplines.

For the last three years, York College of Pennsylvania has conducted an interdisciplinary capstone project focused on designing and constructing a prosthetic hand that will interpret muscle contractions from a young amputee and output the desired movement in the hand and fingers. The overarching goal of the design was to create an affordable option compared to commercially available prosthetics as young amputees can quickly grow out of their prosthetic limb and are more likely to use a prosthetic that is visually appealing. Two features of the prosthetic design are myoelectric technology to detect muscle contractions and 3D printing technology in the construction of the hand. Each academic year, a new student team spends two semesters focused on improving the prosthetic hand design from the previous year’s team. The student team was small consisting of no more than five students from the Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Computer Engineering majors.

This paper will detail the evolution of the interdisciplinary project from its first group of students who focused their efforts on researching and developing an initial prototype, due to working remotely because of the COVID-19 pandemic, to the current year’s team concentrating on implementing sensors in the hand and refining the ergonomics of the existing design. The paper will also include student & faculty reflection and discussion of the faculty facilitation needed for such a service-based project and how engineering educators can consider implementing such projects into their programs.