FAQ

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• ME4182-A AND ME4182-AL: Mono-disciplinary – Industry, faculty, or student idea
  • Projects originate from industry sponsors, student ideas, or faculty-driven ideas. Student teams are comprised of ME students only.
• ME4723-A AND ME4723-A01: Interdisciplinary – Industry, faculty, or student idea
  • Interdisciplinary projects originate from industry sponsors, student ideas, or faculty-driven ideas. Student teams include ME, ID, BME, ECE, and MSE students.
• ME4723-X AND ME4723-X01: Interdisciplinary – Entrepreneurial Create-X Capstone Design
  • Student teams are comprised of ME, BME, ECE, and CS students to design and build prototypes of their inventions and explore market demand and value propositions.
• This website contains information relevant to the first two options, ME4182-A and ME4723-A, only.

Are students allowed to form teams across the ME4182 and ME4723 course?
Yes, within certain constraints. First, it is preferred that all prospective team members register in the same course and section if possible. Students may be moved into the ME4723 course if their team comprises students from other disciplines. Similarly, the students will be moved into ME4182 if their entire team comprises of ME only students.

Please send an email to register@me.gatech.edu. Make sure to include your full name, GTID, and a detailed explanation of the situation/conflict.

The first week of class is crucial for the Capstone Design course since you form a team and bid on projects of your interest. Please review the announcements sent via CANVAS, and the schedule is here: https://mecapstone.gatech.edu/students

The most important task for you is to form a team. Here is a quick summary of steps to form a team online:

1. Set up your profile and check out currently available projects at http://projects.gatech.edu. Check How-to Guide
2. Introduce yourself using the class-wide chat on MS Teams on the General Channel to start finding team members: https://mecapstone.gatech.edu/support. Share some of your interests/skills in the “General” channel as a new post and clearly state that you want to form a team.

• The problem should be solution agnostic – The project description should focus on the problem/need and not elaborate on the specific solution.
• The project should involve creativity and innovation – it cannot be an assembly of off-the-shelf components.
• Lends itself to Engineering Analysis – should require applications of past ME Undergraduate Curriculum
• Sufficient Scope – should justify the effort put in for a 3 credit hour effort by a team of 4-6 students
• The team should have or acquire the skills to complete the project.

• Student Outcome 1: Complex Problems: student work needs to demonstrate ability to solve; complexity defined below
• Student Outcome 2: Engineering Design: list of factors that must be considered – even if all factors do not influence design (factors defined below)
• Student Outcome 3: Communication: Communicate effectively among peers, instructors, sponsors/clients, and the public
• Student Outcome 4: Responsibilities: judgments must consider the impact in all of the following contexts: global, economic, environmental, and societal
• Student Outcome 5: Teams: inclusiveness must be defined, and project (task) management must be demonstrated
• Student Outcome 6: Experimentation: There is no requirement to design experiments, but one must show the use of judgment in drawing conclusions.  The “but” statement applies to capstone design.
• Student Outcome 7: New Knowledge: broad, such as identifying needed information, reviewing literature and data, using appropriate sources, applying information

Complex Engineering Problems

Complex engineering problems include one or more of the following characteristics: involving wide-ranging or conflicting technical issues, having no obvious solution, addressing problems not encompassed by current standards and codes, involving diverse groups of stakeholders, including many component parts or sub-problems, involving multiple disciplines, or having significant consequences in a range of contexts.

Engineering Design

Engineering design is a process of devising a system, component, or process to meet desired needs and specifications within constraints. It is an iterative, creative, decision-making process in which the basic sciences, mathematics, and engineering sciences are applied to convert resources into solutions. Engineering design involves identifying opportunities, developing requirements, performing analysis and synthesis, generating multiple solutions, evaluating solutions against requirements, considering risks, and making trade-offs, for the purpose of obtaining a high-quality solution under the given circumstances. For illustrative purposes only, examples of possible constraints include accessibility, aesthetics, codes, constructability, cost, ergonomics, extensibility, functionality, interoperability, legal considerations, maintainability, manufacturability, marketability, policy, regulations, schedule, standards, sustainability, or usability.

You in most cases, unless the following is true…
– Not you if you have an IP assignment agreement with the sponsor
– Not you if your project is directly related to your on-campus job
– Not you if your project involved significant GT resources; use of the Invention Studio or other “Maker Space” resources is not “significant”; but, for example, use of GT proprietary information or highly specialized resources unique to GT (e.g., customized instrumentation and modeling) is “significant.”

My team has developed a novel design that we would like to commercialize. Now what?

The Capstone Design Expo is considered a public disclosure and you loose your right to file international patent claims for any disclosed aspects of the invention unless you’ve already taken steps to protect your IP (U.S. patent filing still has a 1 year grace period post-disclosure, but it’s still best to protect your IP before the Expo). Available options to take to protect your IP before and/or during the expo are:
Make sure to file for a provisional patent BEFORE the capstone design Expo (https://www.uspto.gov/) This option is the simplest, but then you must file for a patent within 1 year) OR
Ensure not to disclose the enabling detail for claims you plan to patent during the expo (provides more time to file a complete patent, but be extremely cautious with this approach)

Attend the Legal Buzz and/or IP office hours here: https://www.commercialization.gatech.edu/calendar-events