Capstone Project Wiki

The overall project schedule is as follows:

Opportunity Development (first four weeks of class): Teams will learn about the design decision process, be introduced to product development artifacts, and develop the desired outcomes for the Opportunity Development stage. Each team will prepare for the Opportunity Development Review, which lays an effective foundation for the remaining stages of Product Development.
During Opportunity Development, teams will produce the following artifacts:

• A Team Charter that lists the names, contact information, and designated responsibilities for each of the team members, as well as ground rules for the way the team will operate.
• If desired by the team, a team name and optional logo by which the team will be identified in artifacts, presentations, and posters. If the team decides not to choose a name, the team will be identified by its Capstone team number.
• A Project Background describing the background of the project.
• A Project Objective Statement that briefly summarizes the scope, schedule, and resources for the project
• A Project Milestones Table that describes the stages of development to be completed, the deliverables required for each stage, the intended completion date for each stage, and the anticipated budget for each stage
• A clear, unambiguous, and appropriate System Requirements Matrix or alternative Requirement Specification document that has been validated by the market.
• Prototypes, modeling, and testing results that are used to determine the requirements and demonstrate that they actually reflect market needs.
• A summary of the requirements validation activities and results that demonstrates the requirements have been validated by the market and/or sponsor.

The Opportunity Development Review will be held about the 3rd or 4th week of the semester, as scheduled by your pod instructor. More information on Opportunity Development can be found in Design Reviews.

By the Opportunity Development Review, your team will need to submit:

• A team Safety Training Sheet to the college office.
• A completed and approved Team Shirt Checklist.
• An online shirt order consistent with an approved Team Shirt Checklist.

In addition, early in Fall semester, at least one member of your team should complete the quiz on purchasing policies, which is found on Learning Suite. Passing this quiz will be required before any student can purchase items for the project. Most teams will likely want to have all team members pass the quiz, so that any member of the team may complete purchasing orders.

Concept Development (October and November): Teams will select a best concept from a large list of possible solutions which they have developed. They will make and test prototypes to demonstrate that the concept will work and will make and test engineering models to begin to understand how to engineer the concept to meet the design requirements. The testing of models and prototypes provides confidence that the concept will meet the requirements.

After the concept is selected, the system architecture will be defined. The architecture includes the decomposition of the system into subsystems, the definition of the interfaces between the subsystems, and the preparation of requirements matrices for each subsystem. It also includes a preliminary geometric and/or logical design of the product and a preliminary bill of materials. The defined architecture and a Project Success Agreement explaining the criteria used for determining the success of the project will be included in the Fall Semester Design Report.

• Concept Review: The selected concept will be reviewed at the Concept Review, which is held about mid-October, as scheduled by your pod instructor.
• Architecture Review: The complete product architecture is reviewed at the Architecture Review, which will be held about mid-November, as scheduled by your pod instructor.
• Fall Design Presentations: Presentations of the team's work will be made online with the sponsors about the first week in December, as scheduled by your team. Full information can be found at Presentations.
• The Fall Semester Design Report will be due as indicated in Learning Suite. More information on the Architecture Review and Fall Semester Design Report can be found in Design Reviews.

Subsystem Engineering (January and February): During the first six weeks of Winter semester, teams develop a complete system design, and obtain test results that show the subsystems independently meet their performance requirements. Teams also create evidence that the subsystems can work well together, ideally in the form of an assembled system.

For projects that do not need subsystems defined, the test results listed above should be for the entire system.

• The Winter Planning Review will be held between early to mid-January, as scheduled by your pod instructor. This helps the teams make the best use of their time during Winter. More information on the Winter Planning Review can be found in Design Reviews.
• The Subsystem Engineering Review reviews the complete system design and evaluates how well the product is expected to meet the target values of the requirements. Artifacts defining the system design and demonstrating that the subsystems meet their target values are reviewed during the Subsystem Engineering Review, which will be scheduled by your pod instructor about the first week in March. Alternate dates can be arranged by request of the team.

System Refinement (March): Teams will revise the system, work out the remaining bugs, and thoroughly test overall system performance. A complete design package is prepared, and the Final Design Report is written.

• The System Refinement Review evaluates the final design artifacts and the final design report. The System Refinement Review will be held about the first week in April, as scheduled by your pod instructor. More information on System Refinement can be found in Design Reviews.
• Design Fair: Teams will present their results and show off their designs, often by exhibiting prototypes, in a Design Fair that is open to the public. The Design Fair will be held as scheduled in Learning Suite.
• Final Design Presentations: Presentations of the team's work will be made with the sponsors about the first week in April. These presentations will be scheduled by the team. Full information can be found at Presentations.
• The Final Design Report will be due on the last day of class. More information on the Final Design Report can be found in Design Reviews.

Instructors will assign design review dates and times for all Design Reviews. The schedules for the Opportunity Development Review, the Concept Review, the Architecture Review, and the Winter Planning Review are fixed. As part of Architecture Development, teams will prepare a Project Milestones Table with proposed design review dates for the Subsystem Engineering Review, and System Refinement Review. If there is a good reason for significant variation from standard Capstone review dates, the instructors will adjust the review times for these two reviews to be near the team's proposed dates.