I read the appendices first and thought, before I read your reference, that an overview of what the senior design project hopes to accomplish and how it will do it may be of benefit to students early in the endeavor.  Some of my thoughts include:

· The role of engineer in the information age seems much broader than it was in the industrial age.

· The time of companies and/or government caring and providing for individuals for life was short and is essentially over.

· ABET has recognized newer demands and has changed accreditation requirements to reflect their understanding of this.

· Humans learn by doing and failing.  The faster we do and fail, the more we learn. (An important corollary is to not make the same mistake twice.)

· In the global competition, well defined tasks go to the lowest cost supplier.

· Figuring out what needs to be done is more difficult than getting the job done.

· The voice of the customer communicates in many ways.  Learning how to listen is huge.

If the Advisory Board is utilized as a focus group to look at senior design; point of reference, audience for the output, and defining how to analyze that information requires more work.

The Advisory Board may be a good voice for discussing the ABET driven purposes of the senior design project and its relevance to our global economy.  I would paint a picture of the tangible product (the tested prototype) at the end of this journey, the state of the beginning point for senior ME students, and the intangible skills learned through exploring and repetition during the journey.

Russ Tipton