Use of capstone design project in undergraduate materials and manufacturing and experimentation courses

Texas A&M University has had a combined materials and manufacturing course (MEEN 360) that includes a design component and an experimentation course (MEEN 404) that requires students to design, build and analyze an experiment. A variety of different projects have been used during the years the courses have been taught. This year, one of Texas A&M University at Qatar Mechanical Engineering (MEEN) capstone design projects is the Shell Eco Marathon (SEM) urban concept car. The students will participate in the contest held in Germany during the later portion of May 2011. The senior class size is less than 20 people, and they required help in completing the design. The management team for the SEM car project provided potential design projects related to the car to students in MEEN 360 and MEEN 404. The resulting design projects will be evaluated with respect to their impact on the undergraduate course that it is being used in and how it supplements the senior capstone design class. Samples of student projects will be included in the paper. © 2011 American Society for Engineering Education