Drexel University

Electrical and Computer Engineering Department

Senior Design 2009-10

Wireless Innovation. Public Service. Carbon Footprint.

ECE Senior Design
Approaching Deadlines  View All Deadlines
Progress Report 111/20/2009
Progress Report 1 Presentations Start Click Here for the Schedule11/30/2009
ATTENTION - Progress Report 1 Presentation Schedule Posted
Please Click Here for the 200910 ECE Senior Design Progress Report 1 Schedule and Room Assignment.

Alternatively go to http://ece.drexel.edu/SeniorDesign/ --> [Course Information] --> [Dates & Deadlines]

What is Senior Design?
The Senior Design Sequence is the most important challenge of the Senior Year. This three-term sequence is intended to simulate a professional work environment, to provide experience working in a group on an open-ended problem, and to refine skills in information-gathering and communication.

By the end of the Summer Quarter of your Junior year, you will have formed a team, selected an area of interest, chosen a faculty advisor, and submitted a Project Qualification Form. During the Fall, Winter and Spring terms, your team will be working on solutions to their design problems. In the Spring term, there will be an ECE Senior Design Conference in which student teams will present their work at a poster session and then, at an oral presentation, a demonstration of the project and a formal final report.

This conference benefits students in two ways: it provides a forum for them to communicate their results to the community, and it gives students an opportunity to demonstrate in an integrated fashion the skills and knowledge they have acquired during their undergraduate education.

Curriculum
The Senior Design Sequence is a three-term sequence which culminates in project presentations in May. During the Summer term 2009, before the start of the Senior Design Sequence, students will be responsible for the lecture notes, reading the textbook (“Practical Engineering Design,” by Bystrom and Eisenstein), and completing a Project Qualification Form (PQF) by the specified deadline.

Completion of the PQF requires every student to form a team, select a project, select an advisor, and submit the PQF including the required Quad Chart. The PQF must be approved by the team's advisor and approved by the ECE Senior Design Committee (SDC) before a group number will be assigned. All ECE students, regardless of the home department of their project advisor, must submit the PQF to the ECE SDC. The SDC will review every submission, and must give their approval for your participation in a project.

Please note that the approval of the SDC is required for participation in a senior design project.

Following the SDC’s approval, each team will produce a formal proposal that will be due during the first week of classes in the Fall term. This formal proposal, done in the format of ECE Senior Design (see the textbook and webpage for format requirements) will be viewed as a contract between the team and the SDC. In May, you will be held responsible for producing the deliverables specified in the proposal.

The teams will begin research into their projects during the Fall term and, at the end of the term, make a 20-minute presentation on their topic to their advisor and representatives from the Senior Design Committee. Written progress reports are due the week before the presentations begin.

Every student must keep an individual laboratory notebook in which they keep a record of all of their project activity. The notebooks will be inspected at the time of the presentations.

In the Winter term, students will continue project development. At the end of the term, teams will make a 20-minute presentation on their progress to their advisor and Senior Design Committee representatives. Written progress reports are due in the week prior to the presentations, and laboratory notebooks will be inspected..

In the Spring term, teams will complete and test their projects. The term will culminate in a 30-minute oral presentation of the project to the ECE department. A formal final report will be due prior to the presentations.

There will be an ECE Department Senior Design Poster Conference in the week before the final presentations. Each team will make a poster of their work and times will be assigned for the team to be present and explain what they have done.

Selected teams will then proceed to the College of Engineering Senior Design Competition held in June.

The ECE Senior Design Committee will review all senior design proposals and reports, and will play a major role in the assignment of grades for all ECE students.

Selecting a Team and Topic
  1. Form a team of 3 to 4 students, not necessarily from the same discipline. Teams of less than 3 students or more than 5 will not be approved. Teams with 5 members must add a justification for the size of their team on the PQF.
  2. Search for several realistic problems; use you team members' experiences and contacts, e.g. from co-op or other employment, friends, faculty. Check the various senior design bulletin boards around campus, etc.
  3. Brainstorm as a team in order to determine which of those problems seem most interesting to the team, and which ones seem most amenable to solution within the time constraints of the course.
  4. Do some research to narrow the problem choices to one or two good problems.
  5. Find a Faculty Advisor who would be willing to act as your team's "consultant" for the chosen problem areas; work with the Faculty Advisor to identify the single best problem for the team to address.
  6. Do more focused research to establish the real problem to be tackled, what the constraints on its solution might be, what tasks are required to be completed in order to solve that problem, etc. Write the PQF and submit it on time. Late submissions will not be accepted.