Successful industry advisory board involvement in the capstone design experience

In the wake of EC2000, many engineering programs have created advisory boards for their programs to represent their industry and other constituencies. In many cases, unfortunately, the program has trouble successfully maximizing the benefit that can be obtained from the active involvement of such a board. In the case to be discussed, advisory board activities were deliberately directed to enhance the capstone design experience within an undergraduate electrical engineering program. Topics addressed include the first step in the process: selection of appropriate members for a program-level advisory board. Results observed from activities of the advisory board from involvement in four different areas of the capstone design experience will be presented. The areas of industry advisory board involvement included: input on the selection of appropriate projects, involvement in the selection of appropriate design methodology topics, student project mentoring, and, finally, project review.