Mechanical Engineering Senior Capstone Design sponsorships

The Department of Mechanical Engineering’s Senior Capstone Design courses utilize industry-based team projects and professional interaction to provide future engineers with valuable design, communication and presentation experience. Capstone courses are the culmination of the Texas A&M engineering experience, as seniors apply their four years of classroom knowledge to solve real engineering problems. The courses prepare our engineering students to use advanced technology to analyze and design engineering elements and systems according to industry standards.

The Mechanical Engineering Senior Capstone Design Project Program is a two-semester course sequence in which students learn, synthesize and develop the skills of engineering practice. In the lecture portion of the course, students learn the design process and are equipped with the tools that encourage successful innovation. In the studio section of the course, students apply what they have learned over the last several years to a real design project. Student teams generally consist of four to eight students, some of whom hail from other engineering disciplines, working in concert with the sponsor and a professor who advises the team. 

The capstone experience successfully prepares future engineers by bridging the gap between classroom and industry. Employers value graduates with capstone design experience because these students are capable of applying their extensive knowledge base to solve complex engineering problems as a team. Students are required to use their knowledge and skills to complete an engineering design project equivalent to the assignments they will soon receive as aspiring professional engineers. Senior Tanner Parten noted that the “year-long project not only teaches us the detailed design process, but also helps students encounter and overcome the problems associated with large-scale, collaborative projects that we will experience in industry upon graduation.”

The nature of the design projects is broad as mechanical engineering is broad. The projects can include exploratory studies, conceptualization, analysis and simulation, prototyping and validation of design solutions. Projects can be products, parts or systems. Typical results include several written reports that document the design exploration, design refinement and analysis and prototyping process. Students are also required to give design presentations to their project sponsors. Previous sponsors have expressed appreciation for the innovative solutions developed by the students and voiced interest in putting the designs into production.

We are always looking for new project sponsors. Please see https://engineering.tamu.edu/mechanical/capstone-design for more information about project sponsorship.

For more information, contact Dr. Joanna Tsenn (joanna.tsenn@tamu.edu).  

Caption: In the past year, one of the senior capstone design projects was the design of a high speed transportation pod that travels at Mach 1 through a low pressure tube to transport passengers from Los Angeles to San Francisco in under 40 minutes.  The mechanical engineering Hullabaloop Team developed two pod designs for the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition.