What are Capstone Projects?
A capstone project is a culminating, end of program project that students complete with a team of peers during their senior year. These project parameters vary slightly from one program to the next, but all include some common elements:
Real-World Challenges
Capstone projects are designed to put students’ academic experience to work on a real world problem, or focus on how to improve the quality of an existing solution to a real world problem.
Community-Based
Many capstone projects work directly with the local community. Proposing new boardwalk designs for Potter’s Marsh. Developing a debate scoring software for the UAA debate team. Designing a new pay station envelope drop system for the State Parks. This is an opportunity for our future engineers to start giving back to their community through innovation.
TEamwork
Capstones provide students the real-world experience of collaborating with a team, providing the opportunity to implement project management and communication skills.
Industy Support
Capstone projects often utilize industry and government partners as clients and mentors. Industry professionals also attend, and sometimes act as judges for, final presentations and poster sessions. This serves as great experience for students, and provides great networking opportunities.
Capstone Projects in the News
CAPSTONE PROJECTS: A WINDOW INTO HOW STUDENTS THINK ABOUT THE LARGER WORLD
May 20, 2015
It’s true. The green and gold confetti already has fluttered down upon the 1,300-plus mortarboards and lei-laden UAA graduates of 2015. Summer session began Monday. Still, the end of spring semester is so rich with presentations and projects-come-to-fruition that it’s worth one last dip into student scholarship…
HELPING STUDENTS BRIDGE TO ENGINEERING CAREERS
February 9, 2016
For four years they’ve steeped themselves in topics like torque and shear strain energy theory, solved thousands of calculus problems, and absorbed almost as many formulas related to everything from spiral curve deflection angles to concrete slab maximum wall load formulas.