What is ‘Engineering Design’ in a Capstone Project?

ABET Requirements for Engineering Design and Outcomes 

• Capstone design course: “a culminating major engineering design experience that 1) incorporates appropriate engineering standards and multiple constraints, and 2) is based on the knowledge and skills acquired in earlier course work.”
• “Engineering Design – Engineering design is a process of devising a system, component, or process to meet desired needs and specifications within constraints. It is an iterative, creative, decision-making process in which the basic sciences, mathematics, and engineering sciences are applied to convert resources into solutions. Engineering design involves identifying opportunities, developing requirements, performing analysis and synthesis, generating multiple solutions, evaluating solutions against requirements, considering risks, and making trade- offs, for the purpose of obtaining a high-quality solution under the given circumstances. For illustrative purposes only, examples of possible constraints include accessibility, aesthetics, codes, constructability, cost, ergonomics, extensibility, functionality, interoperability, legal considerations, maintainability, manufacturability, marketability, policy, regulations, schedule, standards, sustainability, or usability.”
• Student outcome #2: “an ability to apply engineering design to produce solutions that meet specified needs with consideration of public health, safety, and welfare, as well as global, cultural, social, environmental, and economic factors.” 
• Reference: ABET (2021) Criteria for accrediting engineering programs. ABET Engineering Accreditation Commission Accessed online at https://www.abet.org/accreditation/accreditation-criteria/criteria-for-accrediting-engineering-programs-2020-2021/)

4502 Project Guidance:

• Project requires engineering calculations for pressures, flows, energy balance, etc. on at least one aspect of the project (Table 1)
• Project requires a “Systems” approach, not just the design of a single component.
• Project requires at least one decision based on calculations (Decision matrix).
• Project solution should be open ended and relate to a real world problem.
• NOTE: Students can't do calculations on every aspect of their design. They cannot be a ‘subject expert’ in all they are working on (e.g. design the impellers for the pump they are needing). Just one or two design components need to be highlighted in their final report.

Table 1: Engineering Calculations Examples and Technical Drawing Expectation.