Please note that the information on this site is for my students only. Everyone is welcome to read it, but other faculty may have different rules.
Welcome to my Capstone Corner. The Capstone course will be team taught. Each group will be assigned one faculty advisor, based on interests of the group and availability. Prof. Shafai originally developed the Capstone program, and has led it very successfully for over a decade, so I will adhere quite closely to the rules that he has put together. Nevertheless, anything you see here is intended only for my own students. There will be some minor differences from the way in which other faculty handle the details.
The ECE Department Capstone page has some more information about the course.
The Summer II syllabus for Capstone I is online at eece4790sum2011.pdf . The new one will be posted shortly.
The Spring 2010 syllabus for Capstone II online at eece4792spring10.pdf .
Sample course documents from previous students, are online at samples/index.html, each provided with permission of a team member.
Twice a semester, I will request that you fill out the Peer Review Form .
Some reminders about reports are located at
http://www.ece.neu.edu/courses/eceg105/2003fa/reports.html
Proofreading marks I use in correcting papers are at
http://www.ece.neu.edu/faculty/dimarzio/10436.jpg
Here's some help with printed circuit boards. pcb123
Here's a really small computer with a lot of capability. One of my teams
last year had great success with this. Gumstix
A couple DIY sites.
http://www.sparkfun.com and
http://www.nutsvolts.com
Here's an interesting opportunity to compete for some money at the
Cypress Innovator Design Challenge.
(20 Jan 2012) Announcement of meeting on intellectual property. Please spread the word.
We will have a speaker this Tuesday morning who will discuss university policies regarding intellectual property and patents, and how inventions developed by Capstone teams can be protected.
Capstone students often have questions about the ownership of the intellectual property they develop, and how they can patent their inventions. This is an opportunity to get these questions answered. In the past, certain steps were not taken early enough in the semester, and students lost the ability to patent their results.
The talk is at: 9:00am on Tuesday, January 24 in 108 Snell Engineering by Jessie Pellegri, Esq., Intellectual Property Associate, Northeastern University Center for Research Innovation
(7 Jan 2012) Welcome back, everyone. Our organizational meeting will be on Tuesday 10 Jan, in 108 Snell Engineering Center, from 8:30 to 9:30 AM. Please be prepared to pick a time for your meeting. If you can look at my schedule and decide on one or more times before the meeting, that will make things go faster. http://www.ece.neu.edu/faculty/dimarzio/sched.gif
(22 Aug 2011) The presentations are in the scheduled time for the final for EECE4790. Tuesday, 23 August, 10:30 to 12:30 in 220 Shillman. There is no dress code for this event. You may come in typical clothes you would wear for any class. The final presentations in April will require business dress but it is not needed tomorrow.
(9 Aug 2011) From Prof. Shafai: I invited 2 speakers for this coming Thursday at noon to talk about Innovation, Patent, Entrepreneuers, Patent Lawyer, etc. The speakers are: Jeremy Halbern and Reza Mollaaghababa from Nutter McClennen and Fish LLP. The title of their presentation is "You have a startup idea ... Now What!"
Please inform your team members about this event. We will meet on Thursday at Noon in 300 Richards (Location of our first class). Please attend in this important meeting.
(1 Aug 2011) Grades are due on 25 August. Therefore, I'd like to have all items for grading by the end of the day on the 23rd; (1) Your presentation (in .pdf), (2) your written proposal (in .pdf), and (3) your peer evaluation by email.
(25 July 2011) If you have a project with impact on people with disabilities, look for the competition in September at http://www.changepeopleslives.org/ .
(5 July 2011) So, it's time to get to work. Now that we've decided on groups and meetings times, there will be no more full-class meetings until you present your proposals during Finals Week, on 23 August. Each group will meet with me in 222 Egan, weekly at the assigned meeting time. See my schedule. For those of you meeting on Monday, your assignment is (1) to read the rest of this webpage, and (2) to start deciding on a project. You should plan to meet together as a team, and send me email as you start to make decisions.
Remember that this is a 4-credit course that would normally have 3 hours of lecture and maybe 9 hours of studying and homework in a 14-week term. Because this is a 7-week term, you would be expected to spend twice that time, or about 24 hours a week on the course. Most groups divide that time among team meetings, individual research into particular aspects of the project, and sub-group meetings. I look forward to working with you during Summmer 2, and again next spring.
(23 May 2011) Welcome to Capstone. There is some information about the course below. Groups will be assigned to a specific faculty member at the first meeting. After an initial one or two meetings at the assigned time, the rest of the term will consist of group meetings with your faculty member. Please bring your schedule with you to the meeting, so we can assign times for these meetings.
Let me try to answer some of the common questions.
What is Capstone all about? Capstone Design brings together as many as possible of the skills you have learned during your undergraduate career in ECE, and maybe even in other disciplines. During the Summer-II term (July-August) you will prepare a proposal for your project. At the end of the term, you will present your proposal as a written document to me, and orally in front of the class. In the spring term, (Jan-Apr), you will implement your design. At the end you will present the results in a written report to me, and orally in front of the class and a group of external judges. At that time you will also demonstrate the project.
Below are some pictures from Spring 2011. After the pictures, I
have some more specific questions and answers.
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I have the course on my schedule with a classroom and a meetng time. Is that for real? Only at the beginning of the term. There will be very few formal meetings of all the students in this course. Most of the activity will take place in weekly group meetings, where each group spends time with an advisor, reporting on progress and plans. We will arrange these meeting times to accomodate the academic schedules of all the group members. The whole group will meet a few times at the beginning of the summer II term, to establish groups, assign advisors, and select meeting times. At the end of each term (Summer II and Spring) we will all meet for oral presentations. These meetings will include the groups of all the faculty advisors. Don't make travel plans before the last day of classes, as that will likely be the presentation day.
So we only get to see the professor once a week? No. Our weekly meetings are a minimum. I expect a lot of informal contact through visits and email. First, it's my intention to wander by the Capstone Lab now and then during the white spaces in my schedule, and likely some evenings before I leave the campus. If you have regular hours your group plans to be working, let me know and I'll try to get down there to visit. I am very agreeable to discussing projects by email as well. However, it is your responsibility to initiate this. Let me know when things are going very well so I can see your accomplishments, or when they are going very badly so I can try to help find solutions. I will wander by the Capstone Lab on occasion to give you a chance for informal meetings. Please do not worry about approaching me. The Capstone course is considered to be one third of my activity for these semesters, so I expect to put in at least two hours per week per group.
What is expected? This is a 4-Semester-hour course, for two semesters. In a regular class, that would be 100 hours of classtime, and double to triple that amount of time outside class. If a group has 5 people, that's up to 2000 hours of working time, which is about one working year. You are all seniors, one year short of entering the working world or graduate school. Thus, I expect that you will accomplish about what a new engineer would do in one year on the job. I also expect you to attend meetings and submit all written work on time.
What is a good project? I think the best projects are ones which cover as many aspects of your engineering education as possible. For example, circuits, EM, signal processing, computer engineering, and perhaps something outside engineering. See the information below describing what the judges want to see. However, try to pick something you find interesting. You will work harder on it and your enthusiasm will show. The concept does not have to be original. Innovative design solutions are important, but an innovative concept is not. Commercial potential and market analysis are not normally part of the course. Cost effectiveness refers to your effective use of money to complete the project, not cost effectiveness in production or use.
Do we have to build something? Yes. A pure research project, that could be an excellent MS thesis, is not sufficient to be a Capstone project. The purpose of Capstone is to bring together as many different aspects of your engineering education as possible to design and fabricate a component, device, or system. A computer program or a research project, no matter how complicated, does not qualify.
What do the judges want to see? This list is given to the judges prior to the competition. Individual judges may interpret these somewhat differently, but it is a good guideline.
1) Definition of a design problem
Description of the design
Clarity of the presentation
Degree of difficulty
2) Conceptualization of a solution
Means to achieve the design goal
Innovation and creativity
Feasibility of the solution
3) Implementation of the solution
Analysis and simulation results
Hardware and/or Software construction
Realization difficulty
Functionality of the systems
Cost effectiveness
Report and presentation
Where do we work? Most of the groups will do work in the Capstone Laboratory in 008 Hayden. You will be assigned a locker, a table, and a computer. There will be a good assortment of test equipment and tools for your use. You will probably get to know Steve and Eddie in the teaching labs, as they are good sources for equipment and supplies. Treat them well! Some of you may do projects that are sponsored by a faculty member or other source, and the sponsor may provide you with facilities.
How much money can we spend? New in 2011-12. The maximum reimbursement per team will be $800. Cost effectiveness will be considered in the judging. Try to find donations, loans, or other solutions for high-cost items. Contact faculty for help in this. However, do not bother vendors for small-cost items. Save your "points" for those things that really matter.
How do we buy things? New in 2011-12. Receipts must be in the name of the person requesting reimbursement. Ideally that will be one person for the team, but they will accept a maximum of two. You will not receive reimbursement until 6 weeks after you submit the request, and you can only submit the request at the end of the spring term. Do not pay sales tax!!! Get the NU Tax exempt number (E-041679980A1), and use it. If you pay tax, you will not be reimbursed for it.
How big is a group? The smallest groups should be four people, and the largest six.
How are groups formed and projects chosen? We will give you some ideas for projects the first day. You may also have your own. Sometimes a group is formed before the beginning of the course, with a definite idea of a project. or at least a general area of interest. Other times one or two students will have an idea, but no group. During the first day or two, we will give you an opportunity to get organized. If you have an idea, bring something to show the class to solicit team members. In picking a group, make sure you have a diversity of technical skills.
One of the team members isn't performing. What can we do? The Capstone program is very much like life in industry. There are non-performers there too. Don't let one person sink the ship. A team of five can do a 6-person project. There will be an opportunity each term to rate your team members, and these ratings will be considered in the final grade. If there are serious problems discuss them with me before they escalate.
Can my mommy come to the presentations? Of course! Friends and family are welcome to come to the presentations. Unfortunately, because of the dynamic situation, we can not ensure that we will hold to the schedule. Some changes may be made even as late as the day of the presentations.
So, how long are these reports supposed to be, anyway? Well, of course, I always answer that they just need to be long enough to cover all the material. To give you some guidelines, I looked back through a couple of reports I have from projects I sponsored, and they tended to be in the neighborhood of 20 to 30 pages.
And what about grading? To give you some idea of my grading scheme, here is my first pass at the gradesheets I will use for the reports and presentations. Check the syllabus to see how these figure into the total grade.
How do we get a locker? I will assign lockers and combinations.
What's the combination to the Capstone door? Check with one of the professors. Don't give out the combination to people not in the Capstone course.
How do we build things? Please do not bring power tools into the Capstone lab. If you have access to a shop and appropriate safety training, you may work there. If not, contact me and I will arrange to get you help.
For your convenience, I am compiling a list of important milestones.
ABOUT THE BACKGROUND: My favorite winter passtime is skiing. I put this background together from a detail of a photograph taken at Park City, in 2003. There are four copies in different orientations so that the tracks (and more importantly, the brightness levels) line up as the pattern repeats.