Work in Progress: Senior Design Day during a Pandemic: Virtually the Same as In-person?

ABSTRACT

Senior Design or "Capstone" projects are an important aspect of undergraduate activity in engineering disciplines as they consist of a culminating major design experience incorporating appropriate engineering standards and multiple constraints, based upon skills acquired in earlier course work. Capstone activities include gathering requirements, technical design, presentations, and written documentation. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ingram School of Engineering at Texas State University hosted a “Senior Design Day” at the end of the Fall and Spring semesters, in which projects and student presentations were showcased. At its peak, over 450 individuals attended this event, providing large audiences for student presentations. Attendees were also given the opportunity to evaluate student projects and to provide feedback regarding the event. With the social distancing directives from the university and local government, Senior Design Day became a virtual event. This work in progress compares past events held in person vs. two that were conducted virtually, and of those two virtual events, compares an event conducted with pre-recorded presentations vs. one held with synchronous video presentations. Participant and visitor evaluations and feedback are compared, as significantly more feedback was received for the virtual events than for the in-person events. The differences in how project sponsors, faculty, and students participated in each type of Senior Design Day is compared and discussed. Some elements of a virtual event provided improvements to the experience and their application to post-pandemic Senior Design Days is discussed. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021