A strategy for innovative capstone design projects

The capstone design course is used by many engineering programs to provide students in their final year of training an opportunity to integrate knowledge from coursework and other sources in order to provide a solution for an engineering problem. The strategy for conducting the course, the process, implementation, and expectations vary between programs and disciplines. Often, there are conflicts or inconsistencies in expectations between course instructors, as well as between students and instructors. In many cases there appears to be no 'systematic' way for arriving at project ideas. Students are sometimes offered a list of potential topics, or asked to brainstorm and submit topics for approval. This non-methodical approach has resulted in a catalogue of poorly-conceived products showing a dearth of creativity and poverty of innovations. This paper discusses a pre-capstone course to guide students through the process of idea-production, selection of a title for a creative product or system, and a plan for development.