Capstone Project Wiki

Over the course of Capstone, we have found some things that will be of help to Capstone teams. Scan through these, and carefully review those that apply to your project.

Circuit boards are a good way to implement electrical circuitry for your project, but be aware that you will probably have to make more than one iteration, and that each iteration takes several weeks, so plan ahead. More information on using circuit boards is found on the Circuit Boards page.

Past Capstone students have done very well in national engineering competitions. In order to encourage students to participate in engineering design contests, Capstone will issue financial rewards as follows:

• $100 divided between participating team members for a poster, presentation, or paper entry
• $250 divided between participating team members for a design contest entry

For more information, see the Design Competitions page.

There are a number of Hardware Resources on campus to help you with the hardware for your project.

There are many people on campus that you can ask for help with various aspects of your project. Some information about ways they might be able to help you can be found on the People Who Can Help page.

A Safety Plan may be needed before your team begins hardware testing.

While software is certainly an essential engineering activity, it has characteristics that can make it different than the hardware-focused projects. Because of the ability to rapidly prototype changes and the fact that your prototypes can actually become the product, the nature of software projects is more iterative than most hardware design projects. In fact, it follows the process outlined in Figure 6-3 of Design Decisions more closely than the traditional waterfall project management procedure associated with hardware development processes. However, because of the fixed schedule and resources allocated to your project, appropriate goal targets combined with agile management are essential to make sure that your project is successful. For more information see the Software Projects page.

We have a list of Software Resources are available to help you complete the engineering work on your project.

Effective teams require effective team members. When team members are ineffective, the team cannot achieve their potential. We provide some information on becoming effective team members in the Team Effectiveness section.

Like all teams, your Capstone team will need to learn how to work together effectively, which sometimes can be stressfull. Understanding the Tuckman Team Stages can help you with this process.

For electrical projects, good wiring can make the difference between success and failure. Good wiring practices not only facilitate proper connections and troubleshooting, they also increase the likelihood of the project working long-term. Do not create wire nests, instead, use these Wiring Tips for good wiring practices.

In order for a team to successfully complete a complicated project, the team has to manage their time and resources. This is known as Project Management in industry. The essential idea is to identify each of the tasks that have to be completed to complete the project. The time and resources allocated to each task need to be determined, and scheduled. [In NASA parlence, this task list and schedule is known as a work break down structure (WBS). Other organizations use other terms.] The team must them manage (control and track) their time and work to ensure all the tasks are accomplished within the resources and schedule required.

There are many useful tools to help in project management. A Gantt chart is an example. Many software tools are available to help with project management,