Topics Covered

• Teamwork
• Brainstorming and Creativity
• Engineering Design
• Machining Processes
• Manufacturing Processes
• Project Management

General Information

This course provides the students with the opportunity to work in an environment which closely simulates a real workplace environment. The students will work in groups composed of two or three members from diverse backgrounds, with diverse skills and capabilities. Each senior design group of students is required to elect a spokesman leader, a treasurer, and a report organizer. The projects are devised by the faculty or the industry and assigned to the students in the first week of the fall semester. Each faculty will provide the students with a general project description sheet and main goals to achieve. Throughout the senior design I+II semesters, each group will carry-out a set of project phases ranging from a brainstorming phase, a product design and fabrication phases, and a final testing phase.

Brainstorming Phase

Within the first few weeks after the starting of the fall semester, by a date specified by the instructor toward the end of September, each group will submit a proposal report about its assigned senior design project and give an internal oral presentation. The report and the oral presentation feature the outcomes of the brainstorming sessions done by the group during the aforementioned period and articulate the adopted project design concepts.

Preliminary Design Calculations and Drawings for Parts and Assemblies

Based on the design concept outlined in the previous phase a defined set of preliminary design calculations and drawings for the parts and assemblies are required for this step. By a date specified by the instructor toward mid-October, each group through an oral presentation will present and submit to the instructor a draft set of the preliminary design calculations and drawings for parts and assemblies.

Final Draft Proposal Report with Budget, Quotes, and Timeline

Toward the end of the semester, each group will submit a final major draft proposal report containing the final design, calculations, drawings for parts and assemblies with budget, ordered parts, quotes for last parts, realization timeline, references, and appendices. The instructor will review the draft proposal report, write his own final recommendations for the final report, and turn it to the students. The students have to adjust the proposal report according to the recommendations of the instructor. A general template of the proposal report will be uploaded to D2L as must follow guidance report for the students.

Guidelines for the Students

• The faculty mentor in charge of supervising the students and the project advancement is there to guide the students, advise them, and evaluate their effective contribution to the senior design project. The faculty mentor is not there to do the students’ work. The faculty mentor expects the students to behave professionally and ethically throughout the duration of the project. After class course starts, the use of cellphones, laptops, or any other electronic devices is strictly prohibited. Any student caught misbehaving in class, using foul language, making unethical written or verbal derogatory remarks about their classmates or the instructors, conducting private and/or loud conversations during class, working on anything that is not directly related to the course, playing, watching games or movies, drinking, eating or sleeping in class, leaving the class without the express permission of the instructor will result in heavy penalties for the student attitude grade (20%). Additionally, if the student intentionally slows down the normal pace of the project, do not turn-in his/her weekly report, logbook, and homework on regular basis, show a lack of respect to their teammates by unfairly dismissing their ideas, not listening to them, not communicating with them, and not attending the group outside meetings, such behavior will result in heavy penalties for the student attitude grade as well. If the above infractions are continuously repeated by the student, the instructor will drop the student from class and labs for the rest of the semester. Not attending or arriving late to scheduled lectures, labs, and group/faculty meetings may cost the student the full attitude & absenteeism & project contribution & sharing knowledge with teammates and faculty mentor & attending group meetings & ethical behavior grade (20%).

• It is brought to the attention of the student that the stated deliverable at the beginning of the semester might be changed by the instructor, depending on the project advancement, and/or unforeseen encountered difficulties and problems during the project.

• It is brought to the attention of the students that each one of them is expressly required to participate in all internal, external, partials, and finals senior design presentations.

• It is brought to the attention of the students that any changes in the project design and drawings discussed with other faculty members, engineers and technicians from sponsoring company, the department machinist technician, and the department lab technician must be reported immediately to the instructor in charge of the group who will decide on whether to adopt these changes or not.

• It is brought to the attention of the students that each final drawing and the manufacturing process of a machine part has to have the approved signature of the instructor in charge of the group.

• It is brought to the attention of the students that each purchase of a machine part has to have the approved signature of the chair of the department, the instructor in charge of the group, the machinist, and the purchaser. The three signatures as well as the current budget have to be clearly shown on any purchase request. All purchases have to stay within the allowed budget which is $2,000/group.

Lecture, Exams, Logbook Homework, and Laboratory

This course consists of a one-mandatory hour lecture and four mandatory-hour laboratory design/manufacturing sessions per week. The one-hour lecture session includes mostly a talk by the instructor, and sometime a general discussion of the project’s progression (weekly assignments, difficulties, needs, and encountered issues). The lab time will be spent by the groups working on their projects on their own and under the supervision of their faculty mentor and when needed the machinist technician or the external company engineer (s) or technician (s). Time will be taken during the lab sessions by the machinist to demonstrate some of the main machining operations. The students are required to attend the whole lab session each Wednesday from 2:00 pm to 5:50 pm, and wait for their turn to meet with their faculty mentor. It is brought to the attention of the students that the lab-time is not sufficient to complete all the required weekly tasks. The students have to manage their own study schedule and find time for meetings to complete all required tasks.

The final exam will be in-person, face-to-face, and based on the materials studied and videos seen during the class lecture. It is absolutely forbidden during the exam session to use cell phones and/or other electronic devices with the exception of a simple hand calculator. No other documents are allowed with the exception of a one-page study/formula sheet. The mandatory exam counts for 7.5% of the student total grade. Each student is expected to take the exam on the scheduled date and time it is given. No make-up exams are given.

There will be a weekly assigned homework. In each homework, students are asked to submit their weekly logbook (see template on D2L) and occasionally solve a problem related to the course materials. Each group member is responsible for keeping a logbook containing a list of all the activities related to the project performed during the current week. The students are required to upload the homework to a D2L Dropbox in PDF or Microsoft Word format. The logbook and the solutions of the homework should be organized with the appropriate questions numbering, and neatly written. Homework solutions should be submitted with the posted homework questions sheet as a cover page for the whole homework submission. Homework count for 7.5% of the total course grade. Homework are graded as follow:

• Perfect logbook homework including detailed figures and calculations with the correct answers. Student showed a lot of personal effort in explaining the answers in writing and ingenuity in solving the homework, 90%-100%
• Logbook homework including many figures and calculations with few mistakes and/or some missing items, the homework is missing some details. Student showed some personal effort to explain and complete the homework, 80%-89%
• Logbook homework incomplete, missing some weekly tasks and/or answers to some problems or questions, the copy is incomplete and showing some wrong results, the copy is missing some explanation and/or detailed calculations, the homework is superficial, no real efforts are shown by the student to complete the homework, 70%-79%
• Logbook homework totally incomplete, poorly written, missing many weekly tasks and answers to problems and questions, most results are wrong, no efforts is showed by the student to complete the homework. The copy is lacking critical details, 50%-69%
• Logbook homework not uploaded to D2L, 0%

Homework have to be turned-in on the due date specified on the D2L homework question sheet. Late homework will still be accepted till the end of the semester and graded with a maximum grade of 50% of the normal grade of 100%.

Weekly Progress Reports and Logbook

Each group member is responsible for keeping a logbook containing a list of all the activities performed/information received during the current week. This logbook will be used by the student to draft a personal weekly progress report. The weekly progress report must be turned-in the form of a digital PDF copy uploaded to a D2L Dropbox set-up by the group faculty mentor. The weekly report should contain technical documents, SolidWorks drawings, simulation results, programming algorithms done with MATLAB or other computer languages, hand calculations related to the project as well as a copy of the latest weekly logbook. The provided documents may contain mechanical components technical or specification sheets, finished or partial technical/report papers, electrical, pneumatic, and PLC circuit’s schematics, etc... Additionally, any drawings done with SolidWorks or other software on a weekly basis has to be saved (Pack & Go) on a memory key with a proper short name and given to the instructor at the end of the semester. Any other documents have to be organized in folders, and saved on the memory key. The weekly progress reports will be reviewed and graded by the main faculty and the faculty mentor on a weekly basis. Weekly progress reports and logbooks count for 15% of the total grade, and are expressly due at the beginning of each laboratory session. If not timely submitted, they will still be accepted but graded over 50% of the regular 100% grade. Each group member is responsible for submitting a one personal unique weekly progress report.

Peer Evaluation

The main course instructor will conduct two peer evaluations during the semester. One in the middle of the semester and one at the end of the semester. Each group member will be asked to grade honestly his/her group peers based on his/her performance, contribution, and commitment to the group tasks and project goals during the spring semester. It is MANDATORY for the students to list PROS & CONS for each individual member of the group on the peer evaluation. The peer evaluation counts for 10% of the total student grade. The peer evaluations should be timely uploaded to a D2L Dropbox at the request of the main instructor. Not timely uploading the peer evaluation will result will result in a peer evaluation grade of 0%.

ATTITUDE & ABSENTEEISM & PROJECT CONTRIBUTION & SHARING KNOWLEDGE WITH TEAMMATES AND FACULTY MENTOR & ATTENDING GROUP MEETINGS & ETHICAL BEHAVIOR

This item will be continuously assessed by the main senior design instructor and the group’s faculty mentor for each member of the group throughout the fall semester. The final assigned grade will be based mainly on peers evaluations, class behavior, number of absences, time spent on achieving weekly and project critical goals, attendance and punctuality on all meetings, positive/negative language usage, willingness to work and share knowledge with team members, faculty mentor and machinist technician evaluation of the student’s lab work, appropriate general ethical behavior, and more other evaluating criteria (listed in bullet (1)) as deemed appropriate by the main instructor and the faculty mentor. The general grade for this item counts for 20% of the total student grade.

Public Presentations & Paper Publication & Poster

It is brought to the attention of the students that each one of them is expressly required to participate in in three of following university activities throughout the two senior design semesters: University Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity Forum (fall 2024 and spring 2025), North Texas Area Students Conference (NTASC, spring 2025). The following additional activities and contributions are also required as deemed necessary by the instructor: Counsel of Undergraduate Research conference (CUR, spring 2025), IdeaMSU (spring 2025), writing journal/conference papers, preparing posters, etc... The students are required to start preparing for these activities in the fall semester (draft poster, draft oral presentation, draft journal or conference paper, etc.). The participation in these activities counts for 10% of the total student final grade.

Final Oral Exam

The group is required to give a collective twelve-minute oral presentation before a panel composed of the department faculty in charge of the senior design labs and guests. After the presentation and during the next eight minutes, each group member will be asked to answer a series of questions prepared by the panel regarding the project materials. The total duration of the presentation and questions is twenty minutes.  The oral presentation and oral exam are scheduled Wednesday November 27, 2024 at 1:00 PM in MY 136. It is MANDATORY that all final oral presentations should be done in Microsoft PowerPoint and saved to a memory key provided by the department lab technician Mr. Jay Barnett. The oral presentation and the oral exam count for 15% of the total student final grade.

Final Project Proposal Report

Toward the end of the semester, on November 20, 2024, each group will submit a final major draft proposal report with the following mandatory requirements: a detailed final design description, a complete set of SolidWorks 2-D and 3-D drawings for parts and assemblies, a series of theoretical calculations and/or computer based simulations of a machine/physical process, a schematic drawing of an experimental measurement set-up procedure, a current budget with attached quotes and purchases, a Gantt chart timeline, a set of numbered references for used technical papers, books, and websites, acknowledgements for any internal/external peoples who helped/advised the group during the fall semester, and a complete set of appendices. The faculty mentor will review the draft proposal report, write his own recommendations for the final report, and turn it to the students. Students are required to adjust the report according to the faculty mentor recommendations.  The students must submit the final written proposal report with all the above-mentioned mandatory requirements no later than Friday December 6, 2024. It is MANDATORY that all final reports should be written in Microsoft Word software and saved to a memory key provided by the department lab technician Mr. Jay Barnett. While a working prototype of the design is due by the end of the academic year in May 2025, each group is required this fall semester to produce and show a computer-based design (2-D drawings, and 3-D drawings) and simulation of different (stress, flow, hydraulic circuits, PLC programming, etc.) solutions of its assigned project tasks. Note: while many software tools can be used to develop a computer simulation, the most desirable ones are SolidWorks and ANSYS, since these software are available in almost every computer in the McCoy School of Engineering. Additionally, the report has to address all the requirements specified in the individualized contract sheet distributed by the faculty mentor at the beginning of the semester. The proposal report counts for 15% of the total final student grade.

Course Grades

It is brought to the attention of the students that each one of them will be graded individually. There is strictly no collective grade for any of the items listed in the below table. Course grades are based on the following items with their assigned weighted percentage. They are summarized in the below grading table:

Graded Items

Percentage Assigned to Items

Lecture Materials Written Exam and Logbook Homework, 15%

Weekly Progress Report & Logbook, 15%

Peer Evaluation, 10%

Attitude & Absenteeism & Project Contribution & Sharing Knowledge with Teammates and Faculty Mentor & Attending Group Meetings & Ethical Behavior, 20%

Public Presentations & Paper Publication & Poster, 10%

Final Proposal Presentation & Oral Exam, 15%

Final Proposal Report, 15%

Total maximum Grade, 100%

The below scale will be used to assign the final course grade:

Value Range of X (in %)

Letter Grade

90 ≤ X ≤ 100

A

80 ≤ X < 90

B

70 ≤ X < 80

C

60 ≤ X < 70

D

< 60

F

The students are required to attend the whole lab session each Wednesday from 2:00 pm to 5:50 pm, and wait for their turn to meet with their instructor. It is brought to the attention of the students that the lab-time is not sufficient to complete all the required weekly tasks. The students have to manage their own study schedule and find time to complete all required tasks.

Weekly report should be uploaded to a D2L Dropbox weekly before the beginning of the lab session. The maximum grade for the submitted weekly report on the due date is 100%. Late weekly reports will still be accepted till the end of the semester and graded with a maximum grade of 50%.

The students must submit the final written proposal report with all the above-mentioned mandatory requirements no later than Friday December 6, 2024.

Note: You may not submit a paper for a grade in this class that already has been (or will be) submitted for a grade in another course, unless you obtain the explicit written permission of me and the other instructor involved in advance.

Plagiarism is the use of someone else's thoughts, words, ideas, or lines of argument in your own work without appropriate documentation (a parenthetical citation at the end and a listing in "Works Cited")-whether you use that material in a quote, paraphrase, or summary. It is a theft of intellectual property and will not be tolerated, whether intentional or not.

Student Honor Creed

As an MSU Student, I pledge not to lie, cheat, steal, or help anyone else do so."

As students at MSU, we recognize that any great society must be composed of empowered, responsible citizens. We also recognize universities play an important role in helping mold these responsible citizens. We believe students themselves play an important part in developing responsible citizenship by maintaining a community where integrity and honorable character are the norm, not the exception.

Thus, We, the Students of Midwestern State University, resolve to uphold the honor of the University by affirming our commitment to complete academic honesty. We resolve not only to be honest but also to hold our peers accountable for complete honesty in all university matters.

We consider it dishonest to ask for, give, or receive help in examinations or quizzes, to use any unauthorized material in examinations, or to present, as one's own, work or ideas which are not entirely one's own. We recognize that any instructor has the right to expect that all student work is honest, original work. We accept and acknowledge that responsibility for lying, cheating, stealing, plagiarism, and other forms of academic dishonesty fundamentally rests within each individual student.

We expect of ourselves academic integrity, personal professionalism, and ethical character. We appreciate steps taken by University officials to protect the honor of the University against any who would disgrace the MSU student body by violating the spirit of this creed.

Written and adopted by the 2002-2003 MSU Student Senate.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a federal anti-discrimination statute that provides comprehensive civil rights protection for persons with disabilities. Among other things, this legislation requires that all students with disabilities be guaranteed a learning environment that provides for reasonable accommodation of their disabilities. If you believe you have a disability requiring an accommodation, please contact the Disability Support Services in Room 168 of the Clark Student Center, (940) 397-4140.

The professor considers this classroom to be a place where you will be treated with respect as a human being - regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, political beliefs, age, or ability. Additionally, diversity of thought is appreciated and encouraged, provided you can agree to disagree. It is the professor's expectation that ALL students consider the classroom a safe environment.

All instructors in the Department have voicemail in their offices and MSUTexas e-mail addresses. Make sure you add your instructor's phone number and e-mail address to both email and cell phone lists of contacts.

Obligation to Report Sex Discrimination under State and Federal Law

Midwestern State University is committed to providing and strengthening an educational, working, and living environment where students, faculty, staff, and visitors are free from sex discrimination of any kind. State and federal law require University employees to report sex discrimination and sexual misconduct to the University’s Office of Title IX. As a faculty member, I am required to report to the Title IX Coordinator any allegations, personally observed behavior, or other direct or indirect knowledge of conduct that reasonably may constitute sex discrimination or sexual misconduct, which includes sexual assault, sexual harassment, dating violence, or stalking, involving a student or employee. After a report is made, the office of Title IX will reach out to the affected student or employee in an effort to connect such person(s) with resources and options in addressing the allegations made in the report. You are also encouraged to report any incidents to the office of Title IX. You may do so by contacting:

Laura Hetrick

Title IX Coordinator
Sunwatcher Village Clubhouse
940-397-4213

laura.hetrick@msutexas.edu

You may also file an online report 24/7 at Maxient 

Should you wish to visit with someone about your experience in confidence, you may contact the MSU Counseling Center at 940-397-4618. For more information on the University’s policy on Title IX or sexual misconduct, please visit MSU Texas Title IX

Senate Bill 11 passed by the 84th Texas Legislature allows licensed handgun holders to carry concealed handguns on campus, effective August 1, 2016. Areas excluded from concealed carry are appropriately marked, in accordance with state law. For more information regarding campus carry, please refer to the University’s webpage at https://msutexas.edu/campus-carry/rules-policies.

If you have questions or concerns, please contact MSU Chief of Police at police@msutexas.edu.