ENGR 481 Engineering Design I

This is the first senior design course where students are exposed to engineering design and product/process development. Students work in teams on engineering design projects from inception to completion to satisfy the needs and requirements of the clients. In addition to technical design, factors such as safety, economics, and ethical and societal implications are considered.

Note: ENGR 481 and ENGR 482 represent two parts of the same project; therefore, they must be taken in consecutive terms.

For information regarding prerequisites for this course, please refer to the Academic Course Catalog.

This course enables students to apply engineering design principles introduced in ENGR 381. Students are challenged to combine knowledge of design principles, engineering principles, and ethics to complete a project on schedule and within a budget that meets customer requirements. Through this process, students gain experience working on a multidisciplinary team, communicating effectively, writing technical reports, setting and meeting objectives, developing a design, prototyping a design, and designing to cost and safety constraints. This course is the first phase of a capstone project covering two semesters.

After reading the Course Syllabus and Student Expectations, the student will complete the related checklist found in the Course Overview.

Each team will record a periodic short (5-minutes) presentation and post the video in our Teams Channel.

Task 1 Project Overview, Stakeholder Needs, Requirements and Scope of Work Assignment

Teams will author a report to address initial project aspects (i.e., project overview, stakeholder requirements, needs, vision for scope of work for the project).

Task 2 Report Assignment

Teams will complete and submit a report describing initial site development concepts.

Task 3 Report Assignment

Teams will author a more complete site development report.

Team will address review comments from Task 3 report. Task 4 report will represent the final site plan developed. 

Task 5 Final Report Assignment

Teams will transition to an approved site plan and begin determining engineering solutions and pre-construction drawings for an assigned focus area (i.e., transportation, structures, geotechnical, construction, water resources, water/wastewater, environmental).

Instructor Evaluation of individual team members at the end of the course. This may include input from mentor, advisor, client, team lead, and team members. 

Team Evaluation of individual team members at the end of the course. Students will evaluate peers and self.  If a student fails to complete his/her own survey, it will result in a grade of zero points.

Quizzes (12)

The purpose of the quizzes are to verify the individual is actively engaged in the project.