Coordinator: Bob Bond; 225 Workman; 835-5411; rhb@ee.nmt.edu
Schedule: Lecture 11:00 - 12:15 PM Tuesday (Sometimes on Thursday)  in 117 Workman
                 Lab time 4:00 till 6:00 on Tuesdays and Thursdays in Workman 183           

The "senior design project" is to develop all of your skills (technical and non-technical) by solving real problems. This will involve project definition, development of detailed project plans, specific use of your technical knowledge, oral presentations, documentation, team building efforts, conflict resolution, and many other (often unpredictable) functions.

All projects require solutions to real problems, and your first task will be to convince me, and your customer, that you understand the project and have a plan that will lead to a solution. Your project effort will be primarily monitored by a faculty advisor outside of the weekly class meetings.

One use of the weekly class meeting will be project status reporting (not technical problem solving). It will be required that periodically each project group report on the status of their work with respect to their project plan. In particular, are all tasks complete that should be complete, are all ongoing tasks proceeding as planned (if not why not), and is the group ready to begin all tasks that should start in the near future.

The Fall 2012 Senior design course will include presentations and discussion of the following along with the project selection, definition and actual implementation work:

• Several class sessions will look at planning for success in project teams.
• One session on development of good team communication skills with demonstration video showing some of the ways small groups fail in their attempts to communicate
• An introduction to the concept of team dynamics with emphasis on what you can expect when groups of people come together to work on a new project, and what can be done by team members to facilitate the development of highly functional teams
• An introduction to the idea that individuals have different social styles and what that implies in a group environment
• Discussion of conflict. Why it is good and how to work toward appropriate resolution. Humorous conflict resolution video will be shown.
• The Quality Function Deployment formalism as a model for truly understanding your customers needs and guaranteeing that you product design meets these needs.

About two thirds of the way through the term each group will be required to participate in a design review of their project with the EE faculty serving as a board of technical experts. Final project presentations (given during the last week of classes) will be evaluated by the faculty and peer group using criteria developed by the class members.