NIDIA Membership,
Purdue Fort Wayne is looking for partners to work with groups of students on their Capstone Project for fall 2026. Please see details below from Sean Ryan, Director, Office of Engagement, at Purdue University Fort Wayne.
With this time of year, my focus turns to looking for student capstone project partners for various academic programs across campus. Most of these CAPSTONE PROJECTS begin in August, with some in January, depending upon the program. The duration is typically one or two semesters, with how long they last depending upon the specific program and academic requirements. These projects are valuable to the students by giving them real-world experiential learning opportunities and engaging with our regional businesses. For the sponsoring companies, it’s a great way to get involved with faculty on our campus, engage with students as prospective interns or future employees, and market your organization to our students. As many of you who have “sponsored” projects in the past, a number of students participating in these teams go on to become employees of the sponsoring companies.
We do Capstone projects every year in a number of departments across campus (reaching a total of 50 in 2019 and 26 last year). These capstones are excellent opportunities to showcase your business to an on-campus audience and to directly interact with students working on a project that is relevant to your business. These projects generally start in the fall (August), but we generally also have a few options for spring semester projects as well (January). For fall semester projects, we begin soliciting ideas in the May/June time frame with a goal of having the project scope developed for presentation for students to select by the end of July.
There is a simple contract that we use for these projects that we would use the first few weeks in August to complete. The design phase of the project would be completed in the fall semester (completed in December) with a prototype build, or similar deliverable, to be completed in the spring. The cost of these projects is generally low, confined to materials or other expenses required to complete the work (total cannot exceed $20,000). We also request that the company have someone who can interact with the student group by answer questions, participating in design reviews, etc. to ensure that we produce a good work product while maximizing the learning experience for the students.
For the 2026-27 academic year Sean is looking for partners to work with groups of 2-5 students, in projects involving software development, engineering design, business analysis, information technology and other areas. Projects can either be within a single discipline, or be multidisciplinary (for example, ME and EE’s working together on an automation project). We also have opportunities for other disciplines such as Marketing, Hospitality Management, Interior Design and Human Resources.
- Mechanical Engineering (typically 4-5 projects)
- Examples of previous projects can be found HERE
- August and January start
- Civil Engineering (usually around 2-3 projects)
- August start
- Electrical and Computer Engineering (typically 4-5 projects)
- Examples of previous projects can be found HERE
- August and January start
- Computer Science (usually around 10-12 projects)
- August start
- Information Technology (TBD)
- January start
- Industrial Engineering Technology (TBD)
- January start
You can see examples of Electrical Engineering projects at this LINK (scroll down to “Senior Design”) and examples of Mechanical Engineering projects at this LINK. These pages should give you an idea of the types of projects that we have done for other companies in the past.
You can find additional details on HERE.
PLEASE RESPOND TO THIS MESSAGE IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN PARTICIPATING IN THIS PROGRAM.
If you are interested in participating in this program, please reach out to:
Sean Ryan
Director, Office of Engagement
Purdue University Fort Wayne
Phone: 260-481-0286
Email: sryan@pfw.edu
Sean will guide you through the process to get a project submitted. It’s a simplified process, with the following information needed on the attached (MS Word) proposal form:
- Sponsoring company name:
- Sponsor Address:
- Sponsor Contact (name, title, e-mail address): this is the person who would be interacting with the student group to answer questions and guide the project.
- Project Title:
- Project Description (1-2 paragraphs that give a broad overview):
- Project Budget: this is a constraint provided to the students and should include materials, software, etc. that we may need to complete the work.
- Discipline(s) Required (ME, CE, CS, EE, IT, etc.)
- Technology disclosed: yes or no, Sean would recommend that we do not propose a project that has proprietary source code or technology that is not publicly available to avoid issues here (details on this topic are listed below).
- NDA or IP assignment required: yes or no, (details on this topic are listed below).
The technology question is one that we should cover in advance to verify that we are compliant with all export control requirements since we do have international students on our campus.
Technology and ECCN:
Per Jonas Burgett in the Purdue Office of Legal Counsel: “If your project involves ‘technology’ that is either (a) not publicly available or (b) includes proprietary source code (not executable files), then it requires an ECCN.” ‘Technology,’ for this purpose, is defined as “information necessary for the development, production, use, operation, installation, maintenance, repair, overhaul or refurbishing of an item. Technology may be in any tangible form, such as written or oral communications, blueprints, drawings, photographs, plans, diagrams, models, formulae, tables, engineering designs and specifications, computer-aided design files, manuals or documentation, electronic media or information revealed through visual inspection.”
NDAs and IP Assignments:
The sponsoring company typically has NDAs and IP assignment forms that it wishes to use. Neither the NDA or the IP assignment is an agreement with Purdue directly; these agreements are between the students and the sponsoring company. Of course, Purdue can review the company-provided documents to be certain it aligns with Purdue’s standards. Alternatively, we have draft agreements which we could provide for the sponsor’s use. Again, as NDAs are between the student and the sponsor, Purdue cannot be a party to or advise the sponsor or the student on the NDAs, other than to outline some basic expectations as to fairness and suitability of the NDA to a student project.
If you have questions or want to talk through this, Sean would be glad to schedule a call. This program is a great way for companies to attract talent to their organizations.
Please let Sean know if you’re interested or if you would like to participate this year. Thank you in advance for your partnership.