The University of British Columbia

Capstone Project Submission

Status: OPEN

We are now accepting project proposals for the 2019-2020 school year.  If you have any questions, please email capstones [at] ece [dot] ubc [dot] ca.

Capstone Project Submission Form

Capstone Project Aspects

• Open-ended: Students must be able to exercise a fair amount of choice in the design and implementation strategies. You may impose reasonable constraints on the design and implementation, such as conformance to tools and strategies; however, this is not a case in which students will simply execute a given design.
• Feasible: The project should be able to be completed by a group of four to six students within the timing and effort allocated to the project course: part-time for 26 weeks (1000 to 1300 person-hours). There must be enough work to engage the team from September until April.
• Backburner project: No critical business outcome should rely on the success of the project. It should be something that you thought “if some day we have some spare time, wouldn’t it be nice to try to … [fill in the blank].”
• Relevant: The topic falls within the boundaries of electrical and computer engineering, as indicated on the Capstone Design Project Courses page.
• Work environment: Most of the work will be done at UBC and does not require students to be constantly present at your location.

Clients are expected to dedicate time to explain the problem to the student team, and to help evaluate progress.  There may be opportunities along the way if you wish to mentor the team without unduly restricting their freedom of action, as indicated above.

How to Submit a Proposal for an ECE Capstone Project

The first page provides information to help students decide whether to bid for your project. The second page provides more detail about the people with whom they would be working.

Background: Briefly explain the domain and the context in which you are trying to solve an engineering problem. (2-3 sentences)

Objectives: Briefly explain what problem you would like the student to solve, and what constraints and non-functional requirements they should be aware of. Note that detailed functional requirements will be jointly defined between you and the student team early in the project and do not need to be detailed here.

Major Deliverables: Explain what you would need to see to declare success in April: a prototype, a model, a computer simulation, validated design solution, a set of blueprints, etc.

Special Considerations: You may want to include descriptions of the following:

• special equipment and tools needed
• required interfaces to already existing elements you have
• the need for a formal Intellectual Property agreement with UBC and the students 

Submission Review:

• Before August 15: proposals will be reviewed and feedback given to authors. Feedback focuses on project scope and how to make the project attractive to students.
• Before September 3: proposals will be reviewed but only limited feedback will be possible before the course starts.
• After September 3: will be considered for the 2020 capstone course cohort.

Due to the large volume of proposals we usually receive, our proposal review process can take up to two months. We suggest you submit your proposal as soon as practicable. Our review team will perform a static review, and if your proposal appears appropriate for the Capstone Program, the team will contact you for further clarifying discussions. We will not require face-to-face meetings, and we expect to complete the proposal review process by September 3, at which time you will be notified of our results. If selected, you will have the opportunity to pitch your project to the full Capstone student body and in an audio-visual presentation event scheduled for a date TBD in the first two weeks of September.

Feedback will typically be given within two weeks, but no later than September 3.

You may find some inspiration in the accompanying examples.

PLEASE NOTE:

1. ECE will commit a significant amount of financial resources, but to make this a successful partnership and a sustainable model, it is our hope that you will commit in a similar fashion, feasible for your organization. How this might take shape is open to discussion, and we welcome any and all of your thoughts.
2. Please remember that Capstone is different from hiring a co-op student; it is a course situated within an authentic context with realistic problems. Students are not employees.
3. This offer does not constitute a subcontract for design work with UBC; neither students nor the instructors are acting as design consultants. Please be aware that it is possible that some projects may fall short of your and our expectations. It is a learning experience. 
4. If you wish to engage in a joint research project with UBC, such a situation would involve graduate students and researchers, funded by NSERC, MITACS, IRAD BCIC or others.

Confidentiality

The project is not strictly confidential.  Although the resulting Intellectual Property will belong to you, the students need to be able to write reports and to make presentations to instructors and peers at UBC for grading. 

You will find our standard IP transfer agreement and Non Disclosure agreement below. Note that only these text can be used for capstone projects. Due to volume, UBC will not negotiate specific texts for each project or client.