2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The Engineering Accreditation Commission (EAC) of ABET requires that the program curriculum provide a culminating design experience that prepares students for engineering practice. Emphasis is placed on how this experience is based upon the knowledge and skills acquired in earlier coursework and incorporates appropriate engineering standards and multiple design constraints. In many Civil Engineering programs, capstone projects are associated with an advanced course with emphasis on one concentration area. This narrows student’s culminating design experience to that specific concentration area. However, a better approach may be to broaden this culminating experience to go beyond one concentration area. At our program, we formulated a novel way for students to work on an inter-disciplinary project in civil engineering. Students from three concentration areas within civil engineering (structures, construction, and transportation) were offered an opportunity to work together in small groups on an active or proposed project that included components from all three concentration areas. Student groups diligently worked on this project in true competition style, to incorporate changes through value engineering, sustainability, energy efficiency, and other modern tools to improve the functionality, or other aspects of the project. Students had the opportunity to review actual construction drawings and work in inter-disciplinary teams to incorporate changes. Students presented their final project in front of a mixed audience that included students, faculty, family, and professionals during the Capstone Design Conference. A team consisting of faculty and industrial advisory board members evaluated the communication and technical skills of students during this conference. A rubric with emphasis on incorporating appropriate engineering standards and multiple design constraints was used to assess the group performance. Confidential peer-reviews were then used to assess the performance and contribution of individual members, and their interaction with other members of the group. In addition to broadening student learning, this approach was also valuable to assess ABET student outcomes that are difficult to assess in the traditional class setting. This paper presents the beneficial effects of a broader approach to providing a culminative design experience. The success of this approach has encouraged us to broaden the project to include all concentration areas in civil engineering going forward.