STUDENT NEWS
TRANSFORMING A KEY STUDENT CONFERENCE THE CAPSTONE PROJECT IS JUST what the name suggests, a project our engineering students complete that is the culmination of their academic and learned experiences. This pinnacle project is presented and celebrated at The Dalhousie Engineering Capstone Conference. The Capstone Conference is a year-end celebration of the hard work graduating engineering students have put into their capstone projects during their final undergraduate year. The global pandemic resulted in students being off-campus, and in-person celebrations and gatherings being put on pause. The restrictions challenged the way the projects would be completed and how the conference would be held. The students, the professors, and the Engineers in Residence all came together to ensure the pivotal Capstone Project and Conference could move forward successfully.
THE CAPSTONE PROGRAM
The Capstone program is an 8-month academic program, taking place over 2-semesters, in which students work in teams on real-world problems from local industry. The Capstone program is a rich opportunity for experiential learning, where students face openended problems that do not have a clear solution. Working in their teams, students apply all their previously gained engineering skills, along with the design process, to identify problems, and outline project scope and requirements. Students then create solutions, and eventually design and build a working prototype or solution for their clients. The Capstone program plays an important role in giving students the opportunity to demonstrate their engineering skills, learn about working with engineers, technicians, operators, etc. in real companies/organizations.
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ENGINEERING
The benefits of the capstone program extend beyond students and into the community. These projects allow companies to explore the application of new technologies in low-risk environments, work with creative students who have the potential to become employees and draw on Faculty expertise and Dalhousie resources. Many of the industry partners get involved because they were once capstone students themselves, and they want to give back to younger engineers by offering them a real-world experience, and by mentoring the students as they work through their projects. Many of the companies and industry partners that participate in the Capstone Program as “clients” for the students are themselves Dalhousie alumni.
THE CONFERENCE GOES DIGITAL
The tradition of celebrating the end of the Capstone Project started out as a
“Design Expo” in the Sexton Gym in 2014. Students could voluntarily participate in a poster expo that lasted a few hours of an afternoon in March. In this format, the Design Expo was held for 3 consecutive years before it evolved into the Capstone Conference as we now know it. The first Capstone Conference was held in 2017. It continued the tradition of the poster exposition and competition and added the feature of breakout rooms for formal presentations for all capstone students. This evolution turned the conference into an all-day event hosted at the Westin Nova Scotia, where rooms were filled with over 450 participating students, approximately 100 faculty members, and hundreds of other guests including industry clients, event sponsors, engineers in the community and alumni, high school students, and the presenting students’ friends and family. Also in attendance are the poster competition judges: around 50
