By the time they take on a Capstone project, our students have already built a foundation in technical skills, ethics, relationship management in a team environment, written and oral communication skills, and essential design elements within a regulated industry.
Sponsor Benefits
There are extensive benefits to engagement with our students during the Capstone program, including:
- Low-cost skunkworks research and development (R&D): creation of working, physical prototypes, with all project reports and prototypes retained by the sponsor
- Intellectual property and confidentiality: sponsors may retain all intellectual property and require team members to sign non-disclosure agreements
- Year-long recruitment: ample opportunity to interact with team members and promote early-career positions
- Brand visibility: prominent logo placement and company awareness among students in all stages of their degree
- Employee benefits: personal growth in managerial and mentorship skills within your organization
Sponsor Requirements
- Provide a liaison to meet with the team regularly to guide their progress
- Submit an evaluation of the team each semester
- Financially support the project and provide the supplies necessary to fabricate the final prototype
Student Deliverables
- Semester 1: Project definition, background research, initial concept generation
- Semester 2: Prototyping, testing and refinement, final presentation
Materials produced during the capstone program include:
- Product backgrounds
- User interviews
- Design specifications
- Tear down analysis
- Design history file
- Verification and validation
- Prototype and further iterations
- Oral pitch and showcase presentation
Sponsor Testimonials
We have sponsored teams for the past eight years (up to 10 teams per year) for pediatric device projects to address the need for novel medical devices for children. The teams and their faculty mentors have been excellent in terms of training the next generation of device engineers and entrepreneurs. This experience has been especially successful as a prototype development program where select projects have moved on to further development supported by federal grants.
BD (Becton Dickenson) Urology and Critical Care has worked with several teams in recent years. The students are bright, creative, articulate and determined. All of the projects provided the opportunity to gain real work experience with medical devices. Each team faced and tackled a variety of challenges. I am happy to say that the end results did not disappoint us. So much so, we hired one Texas A&M graduate from a capstone project to be part of our R&D (research and development) group. We are looking forward to continuing our work together.
Past Projects
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A team developed easy-to-use ultrasound technology to capture blood flow data for astronauts on the moon to improve data collection.
Aggies Create Neck Tech for Lunar Surface Blood Flow Monitoring
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A Capstone project provides a solution to stabilize fetuses in utero during fetoscopic surgeries for correcting developmental defects.
Capstone Team Goes Small to Solve Big Challenges of Fetoscopic Surgery
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A team created a total knee replacement method for canines that may improve surgery success and accessibility.
Dog Days are Over with Student-Engineered Knee Implant Method
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Students developed a device to prevent leakage and quicken the healing process during peritoneal dialysis in newborn babies with kidney failure.
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A team developed a testing method that enables a quicker treatment for potential bladder infections after surgery.
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A team created a solution called Quickdraw Vial that contains liquid medication in a uniform volume and pushes out air bubbles to reduce the risk of injections in space.