Capitol College

Syllabus SE-458

Senior Design Project

 

 

Professor: Andrew Mehri

Contact Information:

        Email: amehri@capitol-college.edu

        Website: http://www.capitol-college.edu/~amehri/

        Office number: (301) 369-2800 Ext. 3611 M202

 

TIME & LOCATION: Tuesdays 5:00 P.M. – 7:40 P.M. M101

 

REQUIRED TEXT: None

 

REFERNCE TEXT:  EN 408 required and reference texts

 

COURSE SUMMARY AND SCHEDULE:  This is a 3 credits course.  This course will test your academic and practical approach in developing a project.  Such a project will be a reflection of your experiences in college as well as in real life.  Typically the project is inspired from ideas you have considered or even tackled in the Technical Writing (EN-408) course.  The Technical Writing course is an important prerequisite for you Senior Design Project.  You will use the knowledge gained in that course to justify, express and present your project.  In addition to building a functional project, you will slate some of your writing towards the upcoming school journal for potential publication.

Typically you will be presenting your project at different phases of its development.  Such presentations are delivered to your peers for review, critic and partial grading.  The final presentation is held in front of a larger audience comprising of faculty, students and sometimes outside entities with interest in the school.

(EN 408 and Senior Status are prerequisites to this course)

 

 

WEEK

TOPICS  (Tentative Schedule of Topics)           

EVENTS

1

 
  • Introductions
  • Proposal Discussion

 

2

 
  • Progress Reports requirements
  • Proposal Discussion

One-on-One Meetings

3

 
  • Proposal Presentation

Proposal Due

4

 
  • Research Paper Discussion

Proposal due

5

 
  • Research Paper Discussion

One-on-One Meetings

6

 
  • Prototype Discussion

Research Paper due

7

 
  • Prototype Presentation 1st Half

 

8

 
  • Prototype Presentation 2nd Half & Document
  • Project Management and Expenses Report Orientation

 

 

9

 

No class – Spring Break

 

10

 

Projects Discussions

Scientific Paper Format Discussion

Project Management

Expense Report

11

 

Projects Discussions

Scientific Paper Format & Publishing

One-on-One Meetings

12

 

Social and economical impact issues

 

13

 

Technical Manual Discussion

 

14

 

User Manual Discussion

 

15

 

Walkthrough and demonstrations

Project Demonstration

16

 

Final Presentation

Hand in all documents

Project Presentation

 

* Last day to drop a course without a grade TBA.

 

Software:  You can use the school’s development software on school premises if using standard development software such as C++ or Java.  It is your responsibility to acquire specialized software requiring any fees or licensing if needed for your project.  Copyright infringement will not be tolerated.

 

Lab Facilities:  You are welcome to use the college’s computer, electronics, telecommunications and other labs after obtaining clearance with the appropriate lab manager.  Make sure that you respect the equipment that you use and that you promptly report any problems.  Do not personalize desktops or run programs that are or can be malicious.  Make sure that while coding for your project that you do not compromise a workstation or the college’s network.

 

Getting Help:  This course is very demanding.  You will feel the pinch when projects and presentations are due.  Do not hesitate to get my help by asking questions and requesting clarification.

 

Office Hours:   Please check my office door or go to my website.

 

SEMESTER GRADES:

 

 

Presentations & Demos:

Proposal

5%

 

Prototype

5%

 

Final (5% Demo & 5% Presentation)

10%

Documents:

Proposal

5%

 

Research Paper

10%

 

Progress Reports

5%

 

Expenses Reports

5%

 

Project Management

5%

 

User Manual

15%

 

Technical Manual

15%

 

Final Doc

20%

 

TOTAL

100%

 

Grade Scale:         90 ≤ A ≤ 100

                                 80 ≤ B < 90

                                 70 ≤ C < 80

                                 60 ≤ D < 70

                                 F < 60

 

Homework:  <See Semester Grades>

 

Assignments:  <See Semester Grades (note: Progress Reports are weekly including weekly expense reports)>

 

QUIZZES: <NA>

 

TESTS & FINAL: <Presentations and assignments as shown in Semester Grades>.

 

ATTENDANCE:  You must have noticed by now that this course requires a multitude of assignments.  These assignments will require special formatting and requirements that will be discussed in class.   Your regular presence for the short weekly sessions will greatly improve your likelihood to pass this course.

 

WRITING REQUIREMENTS: The ability to communicate ideas using established rules of the English language is an important outcome of everyone’s technical education.  In this course, you will be required to complete assignments for which writing is an important component, and attention to the grammar, spelling, and style of writing that you employ will have a significant impact on your grade in such assignments.  You may seek help at the tutoring resource center to improve your writing abilities, should you feel that such help is necessary. 

 

INFORMTION  LITERACY: Given the magnitude of information that we are expected to deal with in performance of our tasks, it is important to learn the proper ways of finding, retrieving, storing, processing and incorporating the right type of information.  This course may include assignments that would require the use of on-campus and on-line libraries, the Internet or other sources of publicly available information.

 

THE "INCOMPLETE" GRADE: There is occasionally a misunderstanding about “incompletes.”  College regulation specifies that an incomplete grade may be awarded only if the student has completed almost all the work for a course and has a valid, institution-approved, reason for being unable to complete it.  If you are awarded an incomplete grade, it is your responsibility to complete all work for the course within the first 4 weeks of the next semester or summer term.  After this time, the Registrar automatically converts the incomplete to an F.

 

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY:  It goes without saying that all work handed in for grading must be your own, but you must go further than this.  Avoid situations that could compromise your integrity.   For example, do not allow others to copy your work.  If inclusion of another person’s writings in your submitted work is appropriate, then proper credit should be given to the author of that writing.  I will report any instance of suspected academic dishonesty to the appropriate committees of the school for further investigation and possible sanctions.

 

USE OF MATLAB: Some of the assignments of this course will require the use of the software Matlab as a computational aid.  Matlab is loaded on selected computers in the library, and is available to students anytime the library is open.

 

First Homework Assignment:  From the email address that you most frequently use, send me an email to my address at <amehri@capitol-college.edu> with the following format:

Subject: <SE458 Contact>

Content:  Your first name, last name, Email, Phone Numbers, Mailing Address and major

Please remember to type the course number in the subject area of all future mail that you send me.