Capstone

Senior capstone design for SICCS students at Northern Arizona University

As the highlight of many undergraduate students’ education, capstone projects in our computer science and electrical engineering degrees allow senior students the opportunity to work in teams and work on real-world applied research and design projects. All student teams are closely supervised by a faculty mentor within the School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems at NAU, and many of our projects are sponsored by engineers and scientists from collaborating industry and government organizations.

See the Design4Practice website for present and past projects.

Scope of work

Projects are initiated in August and concluded in early May. Student teams present their work at the college’s annual Undergraduate Research and Design Symposium. Student teams are expected to produce professional quality deliverables to their faculty mentor and sponsor, including design plans, iterative prototypes, and completed products.

Sponsor a team

As a company, member of the community, or individual, we look to you to propose projects. Your proposals give students a one-of-a-kind learning opportunity on problems you would like to see addressed, while building relationships with potential employees.

A brief description, including the knowledge and skills needed for a proposed project, is due on August 15. You will be notified if your project is chosen in late August.

Projects should include opportunities for students to:

• learn and apply new technical or interdisciplinary skills
• analyze and make trade-offs
• incorporate contemporary issues, and
• apply project management methods

Sponsor commitment details

As a sponsor, you:

• must be committed to providing a learning experience and be willing to communicate on a regular and timely basis with your student team
• are asked to fund the direct costs of the project that include material and manufacturing costs, specialized software, hardware or equipment costs, and student travel expenses, and
• are encouraged to make tax-deductible donations to our Senior Design Foundation Fund (which is used to enhance our Design4Practice program) and finance a limited number of non-commercial capstone projects (e.g. community service projects or design competitions)

Contact

If you or your organization desire to have a team of SICCS seniors work on your project, please contact James Palmer for computer science projects and Kyle Winfree for electrical engineering projects.