Senior Project
Overview
ECE, Computer Science, and Interdisciplinary seniors work in teams for a full academic year (two semesters) on senior projects. Projects can start in August or January. Projects focus on developing a product to solve a design challenge proposed by external sponsors. Student teams are formed in the first two weeks and stay together for the entire project. Faculty guide students through this design process.
Design
During the first semester, teams work to fully define the problem, conceptualize solutions, perform feasibility studies, and ultimately decide on a design direction. The team will also complete a detailed design and supporting analysis, and then hold a formal design review. After design review sponsors procure the requested materials and students begin building their Verification Prototype.
Implementation
The second semester is used to finish building and testing the verification prototype to confirm it meets the project goals. At the end of the course sequence, a final report and project expo are presented. A faculty advisor meets with each team on a weekly basis, guiding them on their project. For the technical specifics, the students work with their industry contacts and other CSUB faculty.
Sponsoring a Senior Project
What are the benefits of sponsoring a senior project?
- Creative Ideas. Students bring fresh perspectives and creativity to your problem. Since they haven't worked in your area, they will be willing to take risks and try out new ideas.
- Real Results. All teams create a design, analyze it, construct a prototype, and perform tests. While we can't guarantee the final prototype will function, you and the students will learn a lot about your design challenge during the process.
- Extended Interview. Working with a student team lets you interact with students for a full academic year. This is like an extended interview if you are interested in hiring CSUB graduates.
- Student learning. Your sponsorship of a senior project will allow a team of Engineering/ Computer Science seniors to work on a realistic design challenge while preparing them for work in industry.
What makes a good senior project?
All senior project teams are required to design, build, and test their project. While that adds a significant learning element to our program, this also means that open-ended research projects or wholly analytical studies are not appropriate.
What do we ask of our sponsors?
- Design challenges. We need problems (design challenges) that could be solved by CSUB students. Don't worry if you can't fully define the problem – that's part of the design team's job!
- Communication. The best projects have fully engaged sponsors interested in the outcome who remain in contact with the team throughout the year.
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Course Fee. We ask external sponsors to pay a Course Fee at the start of the project to cover course administrative, facility, equipment, and limited project costs. Course Fee is:
- $5000 for corporate sponsors
- $2000 for individuals or start-ups
I want to sponsor a project. How do I start?
You can submit a project proposal using this Google Form! CSUB Sponsored Senior Project Proposal. After we receive your project idea, we'll follow up to discuss the details and help you refine the scope to ensure project success. At the same time, we'll start the project sponsorship paperwork.
If you'd like to know more about the program or have a design challenge you'd like to discuss, please contact the senior project coordinator, Dr. Amin Malek, at amalekm@csub.edu.
More info
To download a PDF flyer with this information, click here: CEE/CS senior project flyer
2025 Senior Design Expo
The 2025 Senior Engineering Design Expo was held on May 1st in the Solario de Fortaleza room at the Student Recreation Center. Eighteen teams of students presented their work using posters and technical demos.
The gallery below depicts the final projects made by our graduating seniors under the supervision of faculty. It takes tremendous effort, endurance, and collaboration to successfully complete a senior project, and we want to ensure our students' hard work is recognized and celebrated. Each project contains links to a poster, and any supplementary materials such as contact emails, presentation videos, and transcripts.
To all of our graduating seniors, congratulations!