Become a Senior Design Capstone Sponsor

The Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Rutgers University invites you to join us in educating our engineering students by becoming a senior design “capstone” sponsor.

The senior capstone design course prepares our students to enter the engineering profession through partnerships with industry sponsors. Some of our past sponsors include Bristol Myers Squibb, Schlumberger, Boeing, the U.S. Army, Airways Development, Stull Packaging Company, and more.

In addition to providing project funding of $10K, sponsorships can be done by:

Proposing and mentoring a design project of interest to you
Choosing an ongoing faculty lead project to sponsor.

By sponsoring the senior capstone program, you will be providing our students with valuable hands-on experience developing a real-world design while you reap the benefits of the department's research facilities and faculty expertise.

A proposed project can be directed to a wide variety of mechanical and aerospace engineering design topics including new or redesigned lab equipment, futuristic interstellar travel vehicles and propulsion, chemicals, aerodynamics, packaging concepts, valves, automotive or airplane parts, materials, nanotubes, imaging equipment, instrumentation, measuring devices, and many other areas of expertise.

BENEFITS TO COMPANY

Low-cost work on your proposed project or affiliation with an ongoing project
A final report detailing the design efforts
Recruiting exposure to our graduating engineers
Access, via the students, to University resources including libraries, computing facilities, machine shops and faculty expertise.

BENEFITS TO STUDENT

Training and experience in the engineering design process on a real world problem
Mentoring and feedback from professional engineers.
Networking with industry professionals

BECOME A SPONSOR – HOW IT WORKS

Sponsors send tax-deductible donations of $5000 to the Rutgers Foundation to support the Department and the senior design capstone program.
Sponsors propose projects as topics for capstone groups and provide in-house mentors or they can support faculty proposed design topics
Mentors work with the groups to provide assistance and guidance
Sponsors are invited to attend the Senior Design Exhibition in April of the spring semester to be recognized as part of the Rutgers community and to see the final designs.

MENTORS

Mentorship benefits the students primarily by presenting them with practical knowledge and advice, and by giving them access to potential employers and extra resources.

We hope that our external mentors will find the program deeply rewarding. This program is a great opportunity for companies to interact with potential hires, expert faculty and cutting edge research.

TIMELINE

Proposed industry projects are submitted by March or early April for the fall semester or faculty proposed projects can be chosen for sponsorship at any time
Fall semester activities - team finalized, meeting with mentors, engineering requirements established, preliminary design initiated, detailed final designs with drawings and parts list
Spring semester activities - procurement and manufacturing, testing and verification, project completion
Project presentation in late April at the Senior Design Projects Exhibition on Rutgers Day