A. Description of EE 496 Senior Capstone Design
EE 496 is a significant and advanced level design project that integrates the design content of previous courses under the supervision of a faculty advisor. It can be an individual or team project, where the team may be a mix of beginning to advanced level students. The project may be a continuation of an EE 396 project, an entirely new project, or a continuation of an earlier EE 496 if it spans multiple semesters.
The project must cover at least two of the following four topics: (i) data collection and analysis; (ii) design methodology; (iii) design tools; and (iv) instruments. It must cover engineering standards and practical constraints that include most of the following considerations: economic; environmental; sustainability; manufacturability; ethical; health and safety; social; and political.
The course has requirements of written reports and oral presentations. Sections A.1 andA.2 describe the minimal of these. A faculty advisor may have additional requirements and procedures that would be appropriate for the project. For example, the advisor may require other students (e.g., team members)toevaluate oral presentation performance along with the advisor. Requirements, procedures, and scope of the project should be discussed at the initial meeting with a candidate advisor before registration.
Reports and presentations should be of professional quality, prepared using modern tools such as word processors for written reports, and computer presentation tools (e.g., powerpoint) for oral reports.
A.1. Written Reports
EE 496 is a writing intensive (W) course and must conform to the W Hallmarks. If a student takes multiple EE 496s to complete a project (e.g., two credits of EE 496 in one semester and two credits of EE 496 in the next semester), each EE 496 is writing intensive and must conform to the W hallmarks.
EE 496 requires a written final report, which must cover the following items:- Project objectives and criteria
- A discussion of related work and how the project is different.
- Final design
- Alternate solutions
- Explanation of how previous and concurrent course work is related to the project.
- Future work or subsequent development
- At least two of the following four topics
- Data collection and analysis
- Design methodology
- Design tools
- Instruments
- Engineering standards and practical constraints including most of the following considerations (for the following considerations that are not applicable, it must be explained why they are not)
- Economic
- Environmental
- Sustainability
- Manufacturability
- Ethical (for reference, the IEEE Code of Ethics)
- Health and safety
- Social
- Political
- Project title
- “EE 496 Final Report”
- Semester (e.g., Spring 2003)
- Student’s name
- Date
- Faculty advisor name
A.2. Oral Presentations
EE 496 requires participation in a poster session that is organized by the Department. The sessions are typically scheduled during the last week of class.
- Download instructions to participate in the poster session (pdf)
- Detailed Instructions, Process Flow and FAQ for poster session (pdf from PowerPoint)
- Rubrics for evaluating posters - Technical Outcomes (pdf)
- Rubrics for evaluating posters - Non-Technical Outcomes (pdf)
- Students are encouraged to choose their own poster style to effectively present their project. Example posters and poster templates can be found on the Internet, from faculty advisors,and from other students. Download an example poster template (pdf).
In addition, to the poster session, students should give other oral presentations, where the faculty advisor will provide feedback. The presentations, including the poster session presentation, should total 30 minutes or more. These presentations can be given midterm such as progress reports, and at the end of the semester such as final demonstrations.
B. Procedure
Before registering for EE 496, the student finds a faculty advisor, discusses the project with the advisor, and then completes and submits the Safety Policy and Assumption of Risk and Release (online).
Before receiving a grade for the course, the student must submit the following documents to the faculty advisor and the Department.
To the faculty advisor, a final report must be submitted. The advisor may require that the document be hard copy or electronic. The advisor may require additional documents to be submitted, e.g., source code.
To the EE Department, the following three electronic documents must be submitted to the eeasst@gmail.com:- A copy of the written final report, which must be a Word or PDF document. The name of your file should be "report.doc" or "report.pdf" depending on the format.
- A copy of the oral presentation slides, which must be a Powerpoint or PDF document. The name of your file should be "oral.ppt" or "oral.pdf" depending on the format.
- A copy of a 2–5-minute video presentation, which must be uploaded through Google Drive and shared with eeasst@gmail.com. The name of your file should be “ProjectTitle_Video.*” Ex: “WindTurbine_Video.mp4”
To turn in documents please email eeasst@gmail.com.
The video must be uploaded and shared one day prior to the EE 496 Poster Session.
The copy of the written final report and oral presentation slides must be submitted by the date specified by your faculty advisor.
C. Resources
- Safety Policy and Assumption of Risk and Release (online) Fill out before you register.
- Sample cover sheet for the Final Report (doc)
- EE 496 Syllabus (pdf)
- IEEE Code of Ethics
- Writing Intensive Help
- For students.
- W Hallmarks
- For faculty
- Oral Presentation Help
- EE 496 Poster Session
- Poster session instructions (pdf)
- Detailed Instructions, Process Flow and FAQ for poster session (pdf from PowerPoint)
- Poster template example
- Rubrics for evaluating posters - Technical Outcomes (pdf)
- Rubrics for evaluating posters - Non-Technical Outcomes (pdf)
- Teacher Resources Oral Communication Focus. This site contains information about preparing presentations for instructors of Oral Communication (O) courses, including EE 496. In particular, it has "Steps to effective oral communication", information about managing communication apprehension, and how to evaluate presentations (see Inventory of Evaluation Categories/Features).
