The Mechanical Engineering student body keeps increasing – we are now the largest engineering degree program in the State! We expect this Spring to have about 160 students in the capstone design course ME4020. This course is the culmination of the students’ education at the undergraduate level, and for the past 60 years, industry projects were solicited and used to give teams of students challenging and interesting real problems to work on. It gave industry the ability to engage with students to obtain several solutions to problems they did not have time or resources to work on, and it allowed Industry to observe students working, and often, offer them a job after graduation. We typically put three or four teams of 4 or 5 students on a project from a company, and have a team of two or three Jury members (Faculty and experienced professionals or graduate students) guide the students in applying their knowledge to address the problem and produce quality results.
Because of that increase in students, we are asking for help identifying projects from Industry. We need a minimum of 10 projects, but ideally 13 or 14. Typically, the particular company pays a flat fee of $10,000 for a semester for each design project plus assigns an internal contact engineer for questions and overview, and receives in return 3 or 4 student solutions to their design problem. IP belongs to the University, and can be negotiated subsequently with Industry. We have had several patents result from these projects.
We also would love to have experienced professionals participate in the Juries. This requires a commitment of two hours per week either on Tuesday or Thursday afternoon, and reading and helping grade mid-term and final reports.
If you would like to help either formalizing a project or participate in a Jury, please contact Dr. Georges Fadel at fgeorge@clemson.edu or 864-656-5640.
