Government sponsors (operational units, staffs, and Subject Matter Experts) provide information and feedback at four (4) major Capstone reviews for a two-semester student Capstone project. The first is at the beginning of the Fall term, second at the end of the Fall term, third in mid-semester of the Spring term, and the fourth and final review at the end of the Academic Year. It is estimated a minimum of 20 contact hours with government representatives will be needed per project. More is encouraged. 

The System Engineering Research Center (SERC) is a University Affiliated Research Center for the Department of Defense.  Its focus is on advanced research in System Engineering.   Stevens Institute leads a 20-plus university consortium to execute SERC’s activities.  To drive one of SERC’s thrusts for human capital development, a Capstone Marketplace has been created as a “clearing house” to connect government operators with undergraduate student teams working on senior design projects.  Stevens provides administrative, contract, legal, and other support to manage the Capstone Marketplace.  See “About the Capstone Marketplace” for further information.

It depends. We have government organizations, such as USSOCOM and other offices in DoD, that have already set aside funds for Capstones on their topics.  If your problem aligns with an existing DoD sponsor’s interests, we can use the funding we have, with sponsor permission. Otherwise, you will have to identify funding support for your student project. Your funds first get transferred to the DoD office (USD R&E) that supervises the SERC and the Capstone Marketplace. Their DoD Contracting Office will approve transfer of funds to Stevens Institute. The Capstone Marketplace will showcase your problem topic and receive proposals from university teams.  When a proposal is accepted by you, Stevens will write a subcontract to the university to fund the student team.

Yes. We prefer to see proposals from universities as soon as they can be submitted. In the proposal, please include a description of expected student participation, with particular attention to how students will approach “cross-domain” or multi-department solutions, if suited to the research task. The Capstone Marketplace Objectives document in the Resources section lists “attributes” we feel are important for a student design project. 

Each university’s policy on IP needs to be stated in its proposals. SERC’s interest in IP is to protect the government’s rights to use any IP created with federal funds.  There is further guidance in the Resources section regarding these government rights.  (See SERC-CAPSTONE-release-of-information document.) The SERC Contract Office and the universities’ business offices agree on how IP is to be handled as a part of contract awards.  Additionally, Faculty Advisors and student team members are required to formally acknowledge the IP policies at the start of their projects.  The IP arrangements are documented in team Project Plans, and presented at the Fall kickoff meeting. 

It is not anticipated that any of the student work will be classified. However, project team results may induce the government sponsor to pursue additional, follow-on research and development efforts that could become restricted. We are working on processes to identify the most promising Capstone efforts at the end of the academic year with expectations that several will transition to R&D projects managed directly by sponsor organizations. Some of these projects may become classified.

Yes. The project descriptions shown are desired outcomes but may not completely reflect the abilities of undergraduate student teams nor the specific interests of the government sponsors. Students and Faculty Advisors will negotiate the scope and objectives with the government sponsor and will document these in Project Plans, which include their own Statement of Work section. Each Project Plan will include details on team objectives, team organization and responsibilities, execution, services, facilities and equipment, deliverables, schedules, costs, and status and reporting for the project.  (See the Project Plan template in the Resources section.)

SERC’s objective is to stimulate students’ critical thinking and to give them opportunities to use basic “system engineering” approaches in undergraduate projects. SERC’s methodologies are presented in the SERC Capstone Marketplace Objectives document.  (Found in the Resources section.)  Research Topics are selected to give students real problems with real customers, who expect results, prototypes, demonstrations, or other tangible end items when the work is complete.  Students are encouraged to organize their teams and their development activities as if they were a small industry team.  Teams are expected to track their team organization, customer requirements, work breakdowns, schedules, spend plans, and technical progress.   Students on the team do not have to all be engineers; inclusion of students with business or other majors may assist the team in managing the business details of their projects. 

A typical Capstone contract should include four (4) milestones as deliverables (for example, a Project Kickoff, at least two Interim Design Reviews, and a Final Review). Each project team must negotiate its deliverables (prototypes, tests, demonstrations, analyses, and tech data, usually made available at the final review) with their government sponsor. Deliverables must be described as part of each student team’s Statement of Work in their Project Plans.