A successful undergraduate design center

Abstract

The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at North Carolina State University formed an ECE Undergraduate Design Center (UDC) in 1990. The initial funding for the center came from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Beginning in 1991, funding for the center started to come from industry, and the center is currently 100% industry funded. In its first four years, senior ECE students working in reams at the center have completed more than 400 semester long projects. From the industrial perspective, many of these projects have saved companies time or money. From the educational perspective, these undergraduate students have been given the opportunity to work on "real world" projects with engineers from industry and gain valuable experience that would otherwise not be possible. Most of the activities of the UDC evolve around the four credit hour senior design capstone course that is required for all ECE seniors. In the classroom, the capstone course focuses on time-management, team-work, communication skills and open-ended design. Students are expected to take this classroom knowledge and apply it to their actual projects. While working on their projects students interact with engineers from sponsoring companies and with ECE faculty who are familiar with the technology that their particular project focuses on.