Capstone Project Selection

1
Capstone Project Selection

• Amir Niroumand
• amniroum_at_cs.sfu.ca
• 604-782-4407

2
Course Objective

• Research, design, build, and test a device
• Integrate what you have learned
• Engineering design
• Technical
• Regulatory
• Business development
• Soft skills
• Assess your strengths and weaknesses

3
Project evaluation

• Outstanding project
• Address a real problem
• Meet specifications
• Has an existing customer
• Accurate schedule
• Economically viable
• Useful documentation
• Convincing presentation

• Poor project
• Technically driven
• Specs not verified
• Fictitious customer
• Unrealistic schedule
• Poor pricing
• Incomplete and unorganized documents
• Ineffective presentation

4
Project selection criteria

• Your project title should fit one of these
  categories
• Has a scientific value
• Has a customer
• Faculty endorsement
• Industry endorsement
• Continuation of previous projects

5
Sample past projects (2005)

• ThinQ innovations
• Built for Kinesiology
• Exciting idea
• Complete work
• Reliable demo
• Good documentation

• Micro Fuel cell labs
• Funded by NRC
• Complete work
• Extensive testing
• Very organized
• Professional product brochure
• Website

6
Scheduling

• Amir Niroumand
• January 2007

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Kickoff Schedule Tasks
Task Deliverable Dependency Duration Who Note
1 Schedule Gantt chart 4 6 man.hour CEO Add margin
2 Formulate problem Project title Customer 1 week All Critical path
3 Kickoff Meeting Signoff 1 1 hour All Next week
4 Tasks Task table 2,5 4 man.hour All Per person
5 Advice Feedback 2 2 hour CTO Use experts
8
Critical Path Method

• Highest priority tasks
• Plan around the critical path
• Use expert advise
• Eat the frog!

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Project Time Line
Next week
April
ß-version
Production
Working prototype
Engineering prototype
Manufacturing prototype
Kickoff

• Plan the whole RD cycle
• Expect the unexpected
• Best case scenario 50 total over head
• Best / Worst case analysis

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Milestones

• Kickoff
• Freeze options
• Parts ordered (fund)
• Bottle neck tested
• System integrated
• Specs tested
• Dry run presentation

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Summary

• Write down tasks
• Set milestones
• Manage around the critical path
• Evaluate the plan
• Update!