Partners

All kinds. For a list of previous projects, click here.

Project teams typically have 4 mechanical engineering students and last two semesters, running from September to May. Students deliver a milestone presentation and paper at the end of each semester, and present their work and demonstrate their prototypes at the ME Design Showcase in May.

All kinds of projects work well, but in our experience really good projects have the following:

Physical prototype : As mechanical engineers, we love to build things. Projects with physical prototypes (and reasonable budgets) tend to be more popular with students and are more impactful on their learning. However, projects with virtual builds can and do work.

Reasonable scope: Projects that have clear, well-defined work for each student (~6 hr/week/student) are ideal. This allows each student to take ownership of their own work and requires the team to collaborate to integrate their efforts. With any design project, as knowledge is gained, scope may change, so some flexibility is always required.

Impact: There are a variety of ways that projects have impact, but like most of us, students want to know what impact their work will have. When students understand the impact of their work, they tend to be much more engaged and deliver better designs.

Project selection starts the week before classes begin, typically the last week of August, and occurs over two rounds. During the first round, student teams are invited to submit proposals to work on projects that align well with their strengths and interests. During the second round, remaining students and teams are assigned to projects based on their preferences.

As part of the course, we ask partners to interact regularly with student design teams throughout each semester (weekly or bi-weekly is best) and participate in milestone presentations. Typically, partners spend about 8-10 hours engaging with the team per semester. Responsiveness is essential to getting the most out of a design team. We also strongly encourage partners to attend milestone presentations and the ME Design Showcase at the end of the project.

If a physical prototype is required (we strongly prefer this), prototyping expenses are covered by the partner. Typically, students work directly with the partner to purchase necessary material and equipment for prototyping expenses, but we can invoice a partner at the start of projects also. Prototypes are returned to partners at the end of the project.

We prefer to work on projects that do not have intellectual property concerns, as these make project administration easier. However, we do have a standard IP-Assignment and NDA document for the course here. Due to the number of projects we work on during the year, we are not able to negotiate changes to this document.

No fee is required. However, some partners prefer to provided students with a small fund (~$500) to expedite small purchases when prototyping. If you’d like to provide this fund to students, please reach out to the course coordinators.

In-kind donations can have a significant impact on reducing costs and catalyzing prototyping efforts for our students. For in-kind donations, please reach out to the course coordinators to arrange a meeting.

To make a monetary gift to support the Mechanical Engineering Senior Design program, please visit the UW Foundation website, where you can donate online via credit card. In the ‘Find Your Cause’ box, please search for ‘Department of Mechanical Engineering Fund – 112571400’. Once you’ve selected this fund, click the ‘Write in Designation’ button and add ‘For ME Senior Design.’

To submit a project, all you need is a paragraph description of the project and contact information for the project lead. You can submit projects using this google form. The form takes about 5 minutes to complete. The typical deadline for submissions is August 15th for inclusion in the fall semester.