Newswise — Olin's 2017-2018 Senior Capstone in Engineering (SCOPE) program officially gets underway in September. Fourteen corporate partners have signed on this year to sponsor SCOPE teams made up of Olin seniors. The sponsors include: Amazon Robotics, Autodesk, BoeingBoston ScientificConsortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic ScienceDassault SystemesFidelity LabsGE HealthcareMitsubishi ElectricRaytheonRockwell Automation, Santos Family Foundation, SonosTata Motors, TE Connectivity and the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center.

Each student team spends a year working on a significant engineering problem facing the sponsor company. “Amazon is a Think Big and think long term company. We recognize Olin as a top engineering educational institution with excellent engineering talent and value set that aligns with Amazon’s core leadership principals,” said Tim Stallman, software development manager at Amazon. “The partnership has already exceeded our expectations and we anticipate many more years of collaborations.”

While there are some familiar names on this year’s list with Boston Scientific signing on for the thirteenth straight year, there are also some new companies joining SCOPE including GE Healthcare, Sonos and TE Connectivity.

Tata Motors, also new to SCOPE, is partnering with Autodesk Corporation to support the SCOPE project Universal Autonomous Vehicle Design for the Elderly: A cloud-based collaboration between designers and engineers. “This SCOPE project will provide students a very meaningful engineering and design human-centered project geared toward creating a better world,” said Sunand Bhattacharya, Global Education Strategist for Autodesk. “It will also provide an opportunity to develop radically collaborative workflows between engineers, designers and other disciplines. If the workflow processes can be applied in the future of engineering education using our tools, it will be the ultimate win. “

For Olin seniors, SCOPE is the culminating experience of their education.  In this full year course, students work in multi-disciplinary teams of five students, engaging in real-world engineering projects for their partnering corporate clients. The students are responsible for virtually all aspects of the project.

“The SCOPE program is one of the highlights of the Olin curriculum. After four years of project-focused learning, our students bring together all aspects of their Olin education to solve a real world engineering challenge,” said Alisha Sarang-Sieminski, director of the SCOPE program. “The projects span a range of disciplines and represent a wide variety of product development stages from basic research and market investigations through to manufacturing. In addition to putting their well-developed engineering skills to use, the seniors also develop critical professional skills including project management, budgeting, teaming and protection of intellectual property.”

In addition to Sarang-Sieminski there are three SCOPE faculty advisors, Assistant Professor Computational Neuroscience and Engineering Samantha Michalka, Assistant Professor Systems Design and Engineering Alexandra Strong, and Associate Professor of Engineering and Entrepreneurship Jason Woodward.