A Combined Electrical And Mechanical Engineering Senior Design Laboratory

Abstract

Abstract NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract Session 1432 A Combined Electrical and Mechanical Engineering Senior Design Laboratory M. E. Parten and D. L. Vines T. T. Maxwell and J. C. Jones Electrical Engineering Mechanical Engineering Texas Tech University Lubbock, TX 79409 Abstract This paper describes a multidisciplinary capstone design laboratory course offered in the Electrical and Mechanical Engineering Departments at Texas Tech University. The course uses projects from industry, research efforts and other faculty initiatives. The projects for the course come from industry, research efforts and other faculty initiatives. The courses are team taught by both departments. This paper describes the structure of the program along with example projects and results. Both positive and negative aspects of the program are presented. Introduction In the fall semester of 1994 the Electrical and Mechanical Engineering Departments at Texas Tech University began a multidisciplinary senior design project laboratory program. Two courses were established by integrating the Electrical Engineering Department's Senior Project Laboratory courses (two 3-semester credit hour courses) with the Mechanical Engineering Department's Design I and II capstone design courses (two 3-semester credit hour courses). The Electrical Engineering Department has a long history of project laboratories.1-5 The Mechanical Engineering Department has been involved in alternative fueled vehicles for a number of years. Both departments had worked together on a number of special projects and felt the need, as have many others6-11, for an increased interdisciplinary program for engineering students. The goals of these new courses were: to have the students develop an understanding of engineering design projects from recognition of a need and definition of design objectives through completion of the project to foster student creativity to broaden the students concept of engineering problems to include other engineering disciplines and other nonengineering factors that have an impact on the final problem solution to provide a unique educational experience for students on project teams to enhance the students communication skills The projects for the course come from industry, research efforts and other faculty initiatives.

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