Senior Capstone Projects
During your senior year at Detroit Mercy, you’ll take on a real-world capstone project. These projects are based on actual challenges provided by professional engineers. Your work might help your local community or even reach people across the world.
Here are a few examples of capstone projects:
Energy Conservation
Architectural Engineering students teamed up with a non-profit organization on a real building project. They studied how the building used energy, designed a better system, estimated the costs and created a professional proposal for the client. Their plan would save the organization about $250,000.
An image of heat loss through windows.
Some students volunteering to help make changes in the attic.
Water treatment options for local church
As part of a Civil Engineering senior design project, students worked with Gesu Catholic School and Church to study how the their campus handles rainwater. They identified problems, analyzed the site and designed ways to lower water treatment costs. They also presented options for keeping rainwater out of the wastewater treatment plant by redirecting it in safer, more efficient ways.
Their detailed study looked at the current buildings, the soil, how well the ground can hold water and the costs of their proposed solution.
Information Kiosk for the Detroit Science Center
A team of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering students worked together to design and build interactive kiosks for the Detroit Science Center.
At the first kiosk, visitors can choose different health topics and get a wristband printed with barcodes. When they take the wristband to the second kiosk, it scans the codes and shows the information they selected. This could include their current health status, possible health risks and lifestyle changes that could help lower those risks.
Most of the project focused on Systems Engineering, or designing how all the different parts work together to make sure the whole system runs smoothly and reliably.
Team: Arya Sabeti, Farruk Sabeti, Christine White, Phuong Nguyen (grad student), Jim Kubrak, Evangelos Foutris, John Zwally, Clifton Bumhoffer and Matt Batkovich.
Solar Panel Array Installation
Environmental Engineering students and faculty installed the solar arrays on the roof of the Engineering Building.
In the lobby, they created a display that explains how solar power works and shows the real-time electricity being produced.
This system powers about 40% of the building’s lighting. This project was funded by the State of Michigan and UDM.
