Capstone Program
The capstone project is where everything you've learned comes together.
During your senior year you'll work as part of a small team to solve a real engineering challenge for a research group, nonprofit, company, or government agency. Rather than completing a hypothetical classroom assignment, you'll tackle a project with real constraints, real stakeholders, and real impact, gaining the kind of experience employers look for when hiring new engineers. This is your opportunity to apply the technical knowledge and skills you've learned and show what you can do.
Solve real engineering challenges
Every capstone project begins with a challenge provided by a project sponsor. Working closely with faculty advisors and, in many cases, industry mentors, your team defines the problem, evaluates possible solutions, and develops a practical design or process that meets the sponsor's goals.
Depending on your discipline and project, your team may:
- Collaborate with engineering students in other majors
- Research existing technologies and industry best practices
- Translate project goals into measurable engineering requirements
- Evaluate and compare potential design solution
- Design, build, and test a working prototype or develop an optimized process
- Analyze performance, refine your solution, and validate results
- Present recommendations and deliverables to faculty and project sponsors
Throughout the project, you'll use the same engineering design process and project management skills employed by practicing engineers, preparing you to transition confidently into industry or graduate study.
Learn from working professionals
Many capstone projects are sponsored by companies, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations that partner with the College of Engineering. They offer our students the meaningful learning opportunity to work on a real project; in return, our students provide insights, analysis, design concepts, prototypes, and fresh perspectives.
By working with experienced professionals, you'll gain experience communicating with clients and stakeholders, receive feedback from working engineers, and build valuable professional connections before graduation.
Showcase your work
The spring semester of your senior year culminates in Capstone Day, where your team will present your projects to faculty, classmates, industry sponsors, alumni, and guests. Teams demonstrate prototypes, explain their design process, discuss the challenges they overcame, and answer questions about their solutions.
Capstone project examples
The most successful projects combine industry priorities with student expertise and interests. The college works with partners in industry and government to develop both product and process projects—as relevant to the specific engineering disciplines.
Examples of past capstone projects include:
- Civil engineering students redesigned a dangerous intersection and pitched their design to the city of Somerville, MA.
- Bioengineering students used video analysis and computer programming to measure the heartrate of zebrafish embryos.
- Electrical and computer engineering students teamed up to create a TV remote controlled by eye movements for individuals with quadriplegia.
- Mechanical engineering students developed an underwater holographic imaging system for detecting microplastics in the ocean
- Computer science students developed an online platform connecting animal rescues with volunteers, adopters, and transportation