August 2019
Featured Article
Inaugural ExCEllence in Senior Design Showcase
L. Overzet (UTD), D. Aguirre (UTD), J. Bredow (UTA), J. Hansen (UTD), R. Jordan (UNM), S. Newsom (UTD), T. Paillier (Würth Elektronik), J. Post (ERAU), A. Shrivastava (UTD), N. Skinner (UTD), M. Tacca (UTD), R. Wetterskog (UTD)
Abstract:
Electrical and Computer Engineers work in just about every industry and are absolutely key to the economy; but the degree is seemingly falling out of favor as students flock to computer science and mechanical engineering instead. The excitement and thrill of ECE is not put out in front of us nearly as often and poignantly as it could be – as it ought to be. Some wish to focus the discipline into a smaller, better understood field, but ECE has always been the degree which enabled its owner to unlock vast opportunities. How then, can one highlight the multifaceted, widely varying and absolutely astounding array of things which ECEs get to do? An answer might be through ECE Senior Design Showcases. We have begun an ExCEllence in Senior Design Showcase for the SW region of ECEDHA for just this purpose. https://ece.utdallas.edu/sdshowcase
Introduction:
While several senior design competitions exist within the engineering disciplines (the National Capstone Conference www.capstoneconf.org/ and the ASME Student Manufacturing Design Competition https://event.asme.org/MSEC are two examples) no such competition existed within the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) discipline. In addition, there seemed to be almost no connections between any of the senior design programs at any of the SW ECEDHA schools despite the potential advantages of such connections. And worst of all, ECE senior design was impacted by “required course syndrome.” Instead of being a source of excitement and encouragement to students, faculty and industry (not to mention the local community); it was too often viewed as a “necessary evil”, and a difficult one as well.
These challenges have been and remain a problem for ECE; but they are not an insurmountable problem. Senior design can be a time where student potential is unleashed (in a protected environment) and as a result can generate some significant excitement and encouragement. Industry and the local community can be engaged and attracted through projects which impact life (and business) for the better. Like the Eagle Scout program, which gets wonderful community attention, ECE programs and their students can become more and more known for impacting daily living. Overcoming these challenges is not something which a single school can accomplish alone. Surmounting such challenges requires teamwork – across schools – which makes ECEDHA the perfect birthing organization.
The Inaugural ExCEllence in Senior Design Showcase:
Given this background, the goals for the inaugural ExCEllence in Senior Design Showcase were twofold: Encouraging increasing excellence in our senior design programs and Advertising the excitement inherent in ECE. We attempted to accomplish these lofty goals by holding a “showcase” rather than a “competition” for a few reasons; the most important of which was that a showcase focuses on highlighting the good in each school’s project. Competitions have an inherent focus on winning. This is not a bad thing, but can leave a substantial fraction of the participating schools feeling underappreciated and jealous of the resources available to others. A showcase, it was postulated, could enable a more collaborative approach among the participants. There is even hope that schools could use this event to form alliances with other schools and thereby be uplifted. In fact, the leadership team (consisting of members from 4 universities in 3 states) made the conscious decision that every school participating in the event should be encouraged in a tangible fashion. The level of success will become clearer in time; however, the initial indicators were very positive. Representatives from the schools talked about their new ideas for improving their programs; the members of the presenting teams talked about encouraging the next class at their schools; and corporate sponsors (and judges) overflowed with excitement about holding the event again next year.
The event itself consisted of four major parts. There was a reception the evening before the event in which the team members, judges, corporate sponsors and university faculty participants met and were able to begin interacting. It was a low-key affair, which included a time for each team to introduce themselves and share something interesting about themselves and their school. In effect, it was the “icebreaker” time for the showcase. Team members met members of other teams and spoke about the challenges they faced and successes they attained. Sponsors introduced themselves, emphasizing the importance of ECE in innovation. The host school provided a tour of their senior capstone facility to encourage benchmarking and sharing of best practices. The event set the stage that this was a “community” versus a “competition”.
The morning of the event consisted of setup and oral presentations. Each team gave a short (3 minute) oral presentation on their project followed by 2 minutes of questions from the judges. Keeping on time was a challenge but was intentionally important to this part of the event. Engineers working in corporations know that they should have their 30-3-30 at the ready. That is: a 30 second pitch of their project (related to the so-called “elevator pitch”), a 3 minute overview of the project’s key points and a 30 minute explanation. Designing such presentations is not easy. Thus, the 3 minute orals enabled the teams to demonstrate their presentation skills as well as pique the interest of both judges and other participants. (You may see videos of the oral presentations here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_Rqy1KlBiTU6WhHsk18Rs0XQYL9Ly1HM) If ECE is to better advertise the excitement in the discipline, we must have alumni who can “speak and pique” well!
The demonstration phase of the event began immediately after lunch and was 2 hours in duration. We had carefully selected a group of 13 judges for the 13 participating teams. Each judge was assigned to visit 6 teams in the space of 90 minutes (15 minutes each). Each team had both a poster on their project and a demonstration of it to present. In addition, each judge had the option to visit two other teams during the ensuing 30 minutes based upon their individual interests (piqued during the orals). We chose 13 judges for 13 teams so that every team saw at least 6 judges and demonstrated their project at least 6 times. This enabled each judge to see the individual strengths of each team as well. The judges were primarily practicing engineers (not faculty). Thus, each judge was given a detailed scoring rubric and detailed training on how to both fill out that rubric and interact with the teams. In particular, it was not the goal to give constructive criticism as part of judging. Instead, the goal was to identify points of excellence and celebrate those. This portion of the event was closed to the public so that the judges could accomplish their role effectively. It was immediately followed by the open period. During this time anyone could come and see any of the projects. People from local industry came and even family members attended to see the projects and team members. It was a time of boisterous conversation and celebration of the teams’ accomplishments.
A breakout session for faculty occurred concurrently with the demonstration phase of the showcase. (Faculty members were afforded ample time to see the projects during the open period.) The goal of the breakout session was to encourage increasing excellence in our senior design programs and we worked on this goal in a couple tangible fashions. First, there was an open discussion on both the challenges faced in teaching senior design and on best practices. This was followed by a discussion on working towards a multi-campus senior design project.
The showcase concluded with an awards ceremony. The leadership team had identified a set of awards which also included a direct connection to the ABET Student Outcomes (1-7) so that awarded schools could use those during accreditation visits. Those awards were:
- Best Engineering Design Award (1st, 2nd, and 3rd places),
- Teamwork Award: Project which best demonstrates excellent teamwork.
- Making a Difference Award: Project which best takes into consideration impact on public health, safety, and welfare, as well as global, cultural, social, environmental, and economic factors.
- Spotlight Award: Team demonstrating the best presentation skills.
- Step Forward Award: Project which best demonstrates learning new things and things outside of standard ECE.
- Out of the Box Award: Most “daring” project. Biggest and most creative idea.
- Entrepreneurial Award: Project “closest to market ready.” Clearest connection between engineering and business.
- Daring to be Green Award: Project with best focus on “green” technologies and sustainability.
- Peer Award: Peer vote winner.
No team was allowed more than two (2) awards. The only teams which were allowed to be chosen for a second award were the Best Engineering Design awardees.
The corporate sponsors were instrumental in the inaugural showcase and deserve both recognition and a most sincere thank you: Würth Elektronik was first to pledge support and made this event possible both financially and through a large investment of their time as well! Sincere thanks also goes to Mouser Electronics, TestEquity, UTD, Keysight Technologies, National Instruments, STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments.
Finally, we learned many lessons in putting on this inaugural event. We hope we can provide some benefit to others by noting a very few of them here. Some lessons were more philosophical: [1] It is important to set the tone of the event right at the outset. We had decided that this was to be a showcase (as opposed to a competition) so we focused the teams on getting to know one another and supporting each other (cheering and applauding for other teams) as well as learning from each other at the opening reception the evening before. [2] This is a multiple school event and having multiple schools on the leadership team is critical. Each leadership team member gets to represent multiple schools too. Other lessons were more pragmatic. [3] Improve our use of Social Media. [4] Move judging off of paper sheets to online and maybe even cell-phone based. [5] Check the PPTX presentations for format on the night before and correct all of the problems. [6] A surprising number of the student participants did not have jobs yet. Some of the lessons learned require some forward thinking and a clearer understanding of the goals. [7] Should the showcase encourage (or discourage) multi-disciplinary projects? A better way of phrasing this might be: Is there a minimum fraction of ECE students required on each participating team? [8] Is there a maximum (or minimum) team size? The leaders of this showcase had our opinions, of course. Finally, we considered whether or not the showcase would really impact the primary goal: Did holding this event help the regional “us” begin to raise the median level of excellence in senior design? This is a rather big question and we continue to think that enriching the collaboration amongst our schools is a path towards it. More information on the event, the leadership team and corporate sponsors can be found by contacting the authors and/or visiting the showcase webpage: https://ece.utdallas.edu/sdshowcase.