Building a tradition
Just a few months away from becoming the inaugural class of graduates from the University’s Human-Centered Engineering program, 28 seniors—working in five teams—are undertaking their Senior Impact Projects and preparing to present their results next month.
Class presentations are nothing new, but in the engineering discipline, they can take on an exalted status. Some engineering schools cancel classes on presentation days so the student body can attend. Even accrediting agencies take note of a department’s approach to these senior projects and the lessons learned in presenting the essential challenge and solutions to an audience of peers.
“We really want to test our seniors at this point,” said Professor Glenn Gaudette, the John W. Kozarich ’71 Chair of the Department of Engineering. “This is our first go-round, so we are all learning. But along the way, we will build a tradition that all of our students will be proud to participate in.”
Gaudette added, “All accredited engineering programs do capstone design projects. They are even recognized as part of our accreditation process. This is an essential part of our students’ education and preparation for their future careers.”
Engineering senior Wiliam Gotanda during his mid-semester presentation in the class of Professor Siddhartan Govindasamy.
The University’s human-centered approach to engineering aims to provide a broad sweep of engineering education and training, infused with an underlying philosophy that the practice of engineering must take into account how applications and solutions will impact individuals and society.
“What is distinct about our program is it brings together social, environmental, and other factors into the process that are so important to decision making, and we ask our students to also reflect on how their decisions will affect others,” Gaudette said. “This is the influence of Boston College and the liberal arts on engineering education that we think will make a big difference in the world.”
The teams recently assembled in a brightly lit room in the Service Building to run through their talks and update progress in meeting the objectives that have been laid out for them as part of the project-guiding course taught by Gaudette, Professor and Sabet Family Dean’s Faculty Fellow Siddhartan Govindasamy, and Associate Professor of Engineering Susan (Shufen) Pan.
Team Waterlogged has been working on a rain gauge for deployment in schools to help teach students lessons about the environment and climate. They hope to create a connective precipitation collection data system that provides high-quality data and is cheap to operate, according to one team member, adding that the team hoped to partner with schools in Boston using a “community science approach.”
They described a process of interviews with officials at the National Weather Service and the Boston Water & Sewer Commission, as well as with specialists about their ideas, especially the “tipping bucket” design that can empty the collection basin after each rain event.
Waterlogged members discussed how they assessed the technical components they considered to make a unit that can relay new data as part of an interconnected network of sensors, empty the catch basin after each precipitation event, and survive the wear and tear of the elements.
“This is the influence of Boston College and the liberal arts on engineering education that we think will make a big difference in the world.”
Team AQIQ is developing an indoor air quality-monitoring platform that can be deployed in multiple locations within a residential or commercial space to determine the levels of airborne particulate matter, a central component of air pollution.
The team has incorporated machine learning to give the monitoring system the power to predict indoor air quality in the future, said team member Jaxen Farrell.
“We decided to combine machine learning with indoor air quality data collection in order to create the capacity of our device to predict future air quality and give the users the knowledge to take action to ensure healthy and safe environments."
“I am going to be tough on you,” Engineering Professor Glenn Gaudette warned his class as they worked on presenting their projects. “I want everybody here, standing up front, making decisions even about who stands on which side.”
Other projects include: Underwater Multispectral Camera System, which is designing a video system to better monitor efforts to protect eelgrass on the Maine coast; ColdSnap, creating a vending machine that stores and serves ice cream made by the company of the same name; and e-PEN-nephrine Convenient Nasal Epinephrine Delivery System, a sustainable device that discreetly administers epinephrine to patients experiencing anaphylactic shock.
“We are getting close,” Gaudette told the teams. “I am going to be tough on you. In less than three months, it is going to be ‘go time.’ So I want everybody here, standing up front, making decisions even about who stands on which side.”
Gaudette asked the seniors to be able to put a fine point on project specifications: “If you say ‘durable,’ how durable? What does that mean?”
Students described the projects as a way to express the curriculum they have studied during the past four years.
“The first year focuses on design, not necessarily technological engineering,” said Charlie Neill. “But it’s a very important part of the program. The next two years involve a lot of technical education and experimentation. It’s really nice to put those two things together and apply engineering knowledge and skills to the real world.”
Nava Bozorgmehri added, “From the technical foundations of the courses we’ve learned over four years, we now have the base level knowledge to start with. This opportunity allows us to take it to the next level and gain confidence through experiences and education.”
Peyton Carter emphasized the creativity involved, saying, “As an assignment this is a lot more open-ended than others that we have had. This allows for a great deal of creativity.”
Will Sweeney highlighted the holistic approach: “No problem is ever solved in a vacuum. If you get too focused on one thing, you may miss out on opportunities to help people. This program gives you a way to approach the world and problems and people, not just a way to fix something.”
Throughout their four years, students have undertaken a number of class projects, often working with faculty to create the assignments. Gaudette said the senior projects follow in that light, but with less step-by-step faculty input.
“Throughout the program, we give them some guardrails,” said Gaudette. “They may not see them and that’s fine. When they are seniors and they do these capstone projects we take those guardrails off and they have to decide what to do and that is going to prepare them for when they are working in the field in just a few months.”