April 18–24, 2007, Number 440
I'm standing here (back row, second from left) with the Blue Marble Pathfinder Team. There are eight teams from the Blue Marble enterprise working on various projects to develop security solutions for individuals, governments, industries, and international markets. Some groups are also developing initiatives in environmental monitoring and industrial process control.
The Big Expo
It is week 13 and everything seems to quickly be coming to a close with senior design and enterprise. On Thursday, April 19, the Senior Design and Enterprise Expo will be taking place in the Memorial Union Building (MUB) Ballroom. The Expo is an all day event from 9 a.m.–4 p.m., though teams arrive much earlier to start getting things set up.
Senior design teams will have displays set up showing what they have worked on all year. Many also will have their final products there so students, faculty, and guests can view them.
Enterprises will have displays set up and demonstrations go on as well. The larger enterprises that consist of multiple teams will have several products on display from all of the teams. The enterprise I am in, Blue Marble, will be creating an extravagant booth that will be put together starting around 6:00 a.m. Since we have eight different teams, each will have a demonstration or product from what they have done this year. We will also have a representative from each team staffing the booth so they can talk about what their product does.
With the Expo in mind, I realize many of you may not know what senior design or enterprise actually is. The terms are thrown around a lot, especially to perspective students, but often an actual description is not given. I will briefly go over and highlight some of the key points of each.
Senior Design
If your student is majoring in engineering at Michigan Tech or several other areas outside of engineering, they are required to complete a Senior Design project before graduation. Senior design is taken as two 3-credit classes during their senior year, one each semester. Students work within their major department as part of a team on a real-world engineering project. These projects can be a problem of the team’s choice or possibly a project sponsored by an industry partner.
This photo, taken last year, will give you an idea of the type of booth we will set up for the Expo this year.
Enterprise
As an engineering student, I decided senior design just didn’t sound right for me. Instead, I decided to join the Enterprise program when I entered my second year at Michigan Tech. I joined Blue Marble Security, which was only one semester old at the time. New enterprises start up each year as there is demand for them from the students. For most majors, enterprise will simply replace senior design, but it is best to have your students talk to their advisors first. Enterprise can start as early as the sophomore year in college and involves taking a 1-credit class each semester and a 2-credit class in the senior semesters. The student has to accumulate six credits total to replace senior design. The enterprises are essentially student run companies usually with a central theme that ties all the projects together. Enterprises often split their group into several teams if they have many people, such as Blue Marble. Each team works on their own project, yet at the same time, keeps the rest of the company informed at the weekly company meetings. Instead of waiting until the senior year, knowledge is able to be physically applied earlier, which helped me get a better grasp on some of the theoretical classes I was taking.
Whether your student is leaning toward senior design, enterprise, or haven’t thought about what they want to do yet, I highly recommend that they come to the Expo. On top of all the information being presented, there will also be a good amount of free stuff given out to advertise the programs.
If there are ever any topics that you feel should be addressed, please send me a personal email and I will try my best to include them in my future articles.
Until next week,
- Michigan Technological University
- 1400 Townsend Drive, Houghton, MI 49931-1295
- 906-487-1885