Senior design projects: a design example from concept to finished product

By providing a senior, capstone project that extends from project definition and design to the fabrication of a prototype project, students experience a range of responsibilities typical to those that would be found in many industrial settings. This paper describes one such project involving the design of an expansion board for a field programmable gate array, FPGA, device that resulted in a prototype product appropriate for manufacturing. The project moves beyond the proof-of-concept result of many projects and requires that a student master a complex set of skills not typically covered in an undergraduate engineering curriculum.