Work in progress — Exploiting high-altitude ballooning as a framework of ECE Senior Design projects

Senior Design is a challenging course for both students and the instructor and/or faculty advisors. To design the course that can create enjoyable learning environment and be effective in addressing the ABET criteria for student outcomes, we have adopted a high-altitude weather ballooning as the framework of projects for Senior Design. It is envisioned that the new framework better develops students' ability for teamwork and effective communication, as well as, encouraging them to apply appropriate technical knowledge acquired through their overall education in electrical and computer engineering. In this Work-in-Progress paper, we describe our approach to formulating design projects for a high-altitude weather ballooning system. From the progress so far, we have observed that the design of a complete weather ballooning system is suitable for 3 teams each of which consists of 3 or 4 students, and that further revisions and enhancements may be suitable for 1 or 2 teams of students in subsequent years.