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 Class Schedule

 Capstone Design  Project

Capstone Design Project

1. Instructors: Dr. R. Lal Tummala, E 426
Email: tummala@engineering.sdsu.edu

Mr. John Kennedy
Email: kennedy@engineering.sdsu.edu

2. Prerequisites: EE 410, EE 430, EE 330L and EE 434 Or CompE 375, 460, 470L and 475
And Upper Division Writing requirement

3. Class time: Lecture: Tu and Th : 10:00AM-10:50AM in Room E207
Labs: Arranged (E217 and E101)
Help will be available during scheduled lab hours
Regular team meeting time should be arranged within the first two weeks. This will include the meeting with the facilitators

4. Required Text and materials:

1. Salt and Rothery: Design for Electrical and Computer Engineers, John Wiley & Sons, 2002
2. PIC controller kit
List of Recommended Texts will be given as needed

5. Purpose: To provide capstone design experience

At the completion of the course, each student:

a) Should have actively participated as a member of a design team and made significant contributions to achieving the team’s goal and objectives
b) Demonstrate individual competence in designing and building an embedded system involving a microprocessor, a sensor and display
c) Understand ethical and professional issues faced by engineers
d) Should learn how to prepare an engineering design proposal with clear statements of specifications, design criteria and deliverables
e) Must have participated in several individual oral presentations
f) Prepare well-organized written reports both for individual projects and team design project
g) Understand the benefits and the problems of teaming
h) Will be exposed to contemporary issues

6. Course Format: The course is divided into three parts

    1) Team based engineering design project

2) Individual design project in a scheduled lab
3) Regularly scheduled lecture class

7. Class Schedule:

First 8 weeks : Formation of design teams, Formulation of projects and project plans, completing the individual lab projects
Last 8 weeks : Focus on team design project, oral presentations

8. Team Composition:

1. Teams exist for the entire semester
2. Each design team will typically consist of 4-5 members
3. A member of the ECE 499 faculty will facilitate and evaluate the work
4. Teams are chosen to provide enough diversity of skills and personalities

9. Responsibilities of the Team:

1.Team will meet at least once a week with the facilitator at a scheduled time
2. Preparation and maintenance of team’s web site
3. Preparation of power point presentations during the semester
4. Prepare a final project report and oral presentation

9.1 Individual responsibilities within a team

Apart from the team design project, each team member will be responsible for coordinating non-design activities. They are:

1. Web design
2. Team meetings
3. Coordinate ordering parts, budget etc
4. Editor of the reports
5. Power point presentation

It is suggested that an engineering note book kept by each member and enter all the discussion that takes place at the various team meetings.

10. Individual Responsibilities:

10.1 Individual Lab Design projects

Every student in the class will work on these projects in the laboratory. After completing the project, demonstrate this to the lab instructor for getting credit. These lab projects have to be conducted in the order given. All the lab projects have to be completed by the end of 8th week by every student in the class

Weeks 1-2 : Build a sensor-amplifier
Weeks 3-4 : PIC micro- controller programming to read digital data
Weeks 5-6 : Design a data acquisition system using PIC
Weeks 7-8: Programmable Logic (PLD)


10.2 Attend Lecture class

Topics to be discussed during the lecture class

Attendance is required (Part of the grade depends on class attendance)

Understanding Data Sheets and Manufacturers’ Application notes
Micro controller interfacing and Programming: PIC
The Design Process
System Design
Engineering Ethics
Contemporary Issues (Product design as it relates to life Cycle, manufacturability, reliability etc)
Engineering Practice
Prototyping technologies
PCB Design (At least one member from each team should be present)

Note: We may invite visitors from industry to facilitate discussion on some of these topics whenever possible

11. Grading:

The general breakdown of the grading is:

20% Individual projects
15% Ethics and Professionalism
15% Attendance and oral presentations during the semester
50% Quality of the Design Project, final written and oral presentation


12. Tentative schedule of deliverables throughout the semester:

Week 2: Demonstration of the lab design project #1
Week 3: Submit the proposal of the team design project
Week 4: Demonstration of the lab design project #2
Week 5: Submit a revised proposal after receiving comments from the facilitator
Week 6: Demonstration of the lab design project #3
Week 7: Oral presentation of the team design project #1
Week 8: Demonstration of the lab design project #4
Week 10: Progress report #1 and team design demo to the facilitator
Week 12: Oral presentation of the team design project #2
Week 14: Progress report #2 and demo of the team design to facilitator
Week 16: Final design demo, report and presentations

Project Description

Autonomous Ground Based Robot Challenge

TASK: Design and Construct an autonomous ground based robot vehicle to:

a) Navigate through a defined obstacle course to enter a specified region consisting of land mines
b) Detect the number of landmines
c) Detect the location of landmines and disable them

Each student within the team will act as the design engineer for a particular subsystem of the robot vehicle. Each design engineer will be responsible for generating system specifications, designing, fabricating and documenting. Once each of the subsystem has been designed and tested, the team will integrate into a working robot vehicle.

[Aerospace] [Civil and Environmental] [Electrical and Computer] [Mechanical]