As a member of a senior design team, you will be working year-long on developing some device, software, application, interface, structure, or process using what you have learned during your undergraduate education here at Santa Clara University. It is important that in your senior design process, as with all design, your first question in forming a team is directed inward: “what problems do I want to solve?”
Each engineering discipline has a variety of unique and dense subject areas. Academics, professionals, and even students in engineering will often narrow in on one of these fields and adopt a specialty in a field of study. This is often the field or fields that an engineer feels the most interested in researching and producing designs within.
Senior design is as much deep research into a field of engineering as it is about designing and prototyping. As a student, you may find yourself particularly interested in one or a few aspects of your major, which can influence where you feel most driven to pursue your senior design project. These areas of your major where you are most comfortable or most invested in designing within, and are important to communicate to potential teammates. More importantly, understanding what areas of study classmates in your major or in another discipline wish to work in will not only ensure that you are forming a team with a variety of skills, but that you are also choosing teammates who will be enthusiastic in researching and developing technology in a field that interests you as much as it challenges you throughout your design process.
If you are looking to find projects you would be interested in pursuing throughout the senior design process, here are some questions that can be helpful to consider:
- List five classes, labs, or designs in the past that most interested you. What specifically about these did you find interesting?
- What team based projects or labs did you learn the most from, or feel like you contributed most to?
- What are products/structures/apps/designs that you have interacted with that connect with your interests in your field of engineering?
- Within your discipline, list prominent categories that you and other potential teammates have studied. Under each, note which of these categories would be the area you’d feel most interested in, neutral, and least interested in pursuing a project.
- Use the SCU Library online database to research previously completed or continuing senior design projects. Compose a list of project titles that you would have most likely wanted to be a part of. What about these projects draws you to them? What do these projects have in common?
Personal Link
Mechanical engineering, being the most broad engineering discipline, offers a vast range of focal points and specialties. Long before my team and I decided on a design project, an extensive conversation had to be had about what field of mechanical design each of us was actually interested and comfortable in working with for our year-long capstone. I found myself most driven towards projects that required electromechanical systems and machine design, and was least comfortable with projects that would place emphasis on thermofluid systems or materials science. Where I had found mutual enthusiasm in pursuing a project that aligned with my interests, I also encountered some amount of concern or disinterest from other members of my team which, if a certain project were chosen, would make them less willing to be a part of my team. Additionally, I was interested in working on a humanitarian project, which kept my focus on design for underprivileged communities. This, too, required my teammates and me to not only find where our interests converged best, but also to share a desire to develop appropriate technology for poorer, more rural parts of the world.
What our team eventually decided to pursue was the design of a manual clay press to assist clay working communities around the world. Our primary reason for choosing this project was that it called upon mechanical design skills that all four of us had while still offering the challenge of working with a real community on a very real design project. Moreover, echoing advice given to us at the beginning of our design project, we were all interested in putting in the time to make the project successful. This was extremely important because of the high level of commitment that came with the senior design project-- as the project required both our continued energy as well as creativity for the duration of our senior year.