In the beginning of the spring term, the capstone instructional team will hold an information session to answer questions students have about capstone and discuss the registration process. As part of this information session, students will find out about requirements for competition team capstone projects and entrepreneurial projects should you decide to submit proposals for these two project types.
A few weeks prior to spring term registration, the ME 470 instructors will reach out to all rising seniors to share a survey that will help us collect data for helping students to get pre-registered for ME 470 Capstone sections. This survey will be open until midnight on Monday prior to registration. The purpose of this survey is to collect information regarding teammate preference, project preference, and instructor preference.
If you have a strong preference for working with certain teammates, please ensure that each member individually fills out the survey with the names of corresponding members and that everyone is available to meet during the same lab periods. This tells the capstone instructors that each member has agreed to work with that team.
Unfortunately, late survey submissions will not be accepted/considered. If you choose not to fill in the survey, you will simply be assigned to a section.
We will strive to balance the number of students across all sections to ensure equitable distribution and effective class management. This information will be emailed to the registrar for pre-registration.
For ME 471 and ME 472, students will be pre-registered for these courses since students will simply stay with the same capstone team and section for the remainder of their capstone experience. If conflicts arise regarding other classes they plan to register for, it is their responsibility to work with their capstone instructor to explore any potential solutions.
When working with companies, the company will provide information regarding how they want to handle charges. If the company isn’t directly shipping your items nor requiring you to be reimbursed directly, a standardized purchasing process has been developed to avoid confusion and streamline procurement when purchasing items through RHIT. Students can either purchase the items themselves and be reimbursed by RHIT, or they can order items directly through the mechanical engineering department. It is up to the student if they want RHIT to make the purchase or if the student wants to make the payment and be reimbursed. For more details on reimbursement procedures, please talk to your capstone instructor. In general students are not expected to cover the costs of their capstone projects.
Students should try to use approved vendors. RHIT does not use PayPal, therefore, the department will not submit orders that require this payment method. Examples of frequently used vendors in the department include the following: