ENGCON: A PRE-CAPSTONE ENGINEERING DESIGN CONVENTION

Abstract

The capstone design project is ubiquitous in engineering programs worldwide, and is seen by students as the single most important activity in their undergraduate careers. Staff and faculty at the University of Waterloo identified three issues with the current capstone process: students are unaware of industrial suppliers, they lack multi-disciplinary exposure, and they often struggle to identify "good" needs for their projects.

The Engineering IDEAs Clinic, with support from instructors and staff from across Engineering, developed a conference for students to address these issues. EngCon – aimed at students in third/fourth year – brought students together with their peers from other programs, instructors from across the Faculty, and representatives from suppliers (both external industry, and internal support units) with the goal of improving their capstone projects.

This paper presents the design and implementation of EngCon in both 2017 and 2018 with lessons learned from offering a large coordinated set of workshops aimed at students as they enter their capstone design projects.