Engineering Capstone AlternativeTech Venture Capstone

Catalog description

This course serves as an alternative to the Engineering Capstone and meets all criteria for senior level cumulative engineering experiences. The current offering is: The Tech Venture Capstone (TVC). TVC enables students to gain professional experience undertaking an authentic, team-based engineering project in the context of a prospective new venture. TVC is being offered on an experimental basis as a two semester sequence that fulfills the Engineering Capstone requirement. Mastering key elements will prepare students for starting or contributing at a high level to an early stage company. These elements include: Understanding major user pain points and the value of a solution; understanding the market and segmentation (first/early market, beachhead; customer/user persona; customer buying habits/process); understanding how to go from a prototype to a manufacturable product for a specific customer (problem you are to solve; value of the solution for the customer; product vision; minimum viable product; prototype & productization; production, supply chain, BOM; product validation; quality & compliance; schedule, timing, launch; user experience). By the end of this capstone experience, students will be prepared to face the challenges of productizing prototypes to match market needs. Assessment will be similar to SCOPE, with students evaluated on a combination of their individual learning goals, contribution to their team, and successful execution of the project. (Students are not evaluated on the success of the venture itself.)