2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Senior Design Capstone courses provide a hands-on learning environment where students gain valuable experience in project management, collaboration, problem-solving, and technical expertise. They learn to work as part of a team, making decisions about design, materials, and manufacturing processes. The students apply technical skills to practical scenarios, refining their engineering expertise in a real-world context, making connections with local communities or industries, and making them well-prepared and highly competitive in the workforce [1 - 7]. Design projects offer students a great opportunity to bridge the gap between classroom knowledge and real-world applications, enhancing their academic experience and preparing them for the workforce, and support ABET assessment [6]

Capstone courses can also serve as a platform for students to design and create innovative laboratory equipment tailored to the program's specific needs. By undertaking such endeavors of creating laboratory equipment, students not only contribute to the advancement of their program’s laboratories but also support the development of those engineering skills that are highly sought after in the industry [8 – 10].

The majority of Mechanical Engineering Technology (MET) courses are 4 credit-hour (ch) courses, consisting of a 3ch lecture and 1-ch laboratory component. These courses encompass various aspects such as hands-on observation, measurement, data acquisition, data analysis, interpretation, technical reporting, and more. They rely not only on computer applications and software but, more importantly, on state-of-the-art hands-on laboratory equipment. However, reduced funding and aging equipment can compromise the quality of the student lab experience. In response to these challenges, the Engineering Technology faculty at The University of XXXXX has been proactively engaged in multiple initiatives over the years, one of which involves leveraging the Senior Design – Capstone course as a platform for the development of new laboratory equipment. Recent examples include a wind tunnel and a fluid mechanics test bench.

The first piece of equipment, completed during the spring 2023 semester, is a wind tunnel. A team of six MET students dedicated an entire semester to designing and constructing a functional tabletop wind tunnel suitable for flow visualization and basic pressure measurements. The selected fan can generate a 20-mph flow in the test section. A fog machine can generate the streamlines visualization. Leveraging their skills in SolidWorks, 3-D printing, engineering design, fluid flow, and more, the team successfully created a 7ft prototype at a materials cost of under $200.

The second project, to be completed by the end of the fall 2023 semester, is a more comprehensive fluid mechanics test unit to replace three outdated testing equipment. The equipment will be used for a series of fluid flow measurements and will consists in a series of parallel pipelines of different materials and diameters, a series of 90-degree standard elbows, valves, etc. While this project is still in progress as of this abstract, substantial progress has been made in creating a blueprint for the functional setup and procuring most of the components required for the buildup. Estimated cost for this test unit is approximately $300.