Senior Design

The University of Toledo

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering
CIVE 4750

Instructor: Serhan Guner Class Location: NI 1052

Email: serhan.guner@utoledo.edu Class Day/Time: Mon & Wed 12.55 – 2.15 pm
Office Hours: Mon & Wed after class Team Meetings: Refer to team schedules
Office Location: NI 3021 Client Meetings: Refer to team schedules
Office Phone: 419-530-8133 Credit Hours: 3
Term: Spring 2021

COURSE/CATALOG DESCRIPTION
To provide real world civil engineering design experience through a design problem as would be developed
in an actual civil engineering consultant's office.

OBJECTIVES
The primary objective for each team member is to develop an engineering solution and associated design to
a real problem while fulfilling the requirements of a client. Student teams will identify the problem, generate
a scope of work, develop a schedule, and carry out the design while presenting their progress to their client
and obtaining his/her feedback in regular meetings. The final design and deliverables will be presented to
the client at the end of the semester. Specific student objectives include:

Evaluate at least three design alternatives from technical, cost, environmental and social perspectives.
Perform design calculation, including verification checks using a secondary method or tool.
Create design drawings to show all main dimensions, material properties and design details.
Prepare a project report to include all details using a formal and well-organized layout.
Create modern multimedia content for dissemination, including animations, drone recordings, and
other technologies as appropriate for each project.
Prepare and present effective PowerPoint presentations.
Prepare and present effective poster and display materials for the Senior Design Expo.

STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES (SLOs)

An ability to identify, formulate, and solve complex engineering problems by applying principles of
engineering, science, and mathematics. (1)
An ability to apply engineering design to produce solutions that meet specified needs with consideration
of public health, safety, and welfare, as well as global, cultural, social, environmental, and economic
factors. (2)
An ability to communicate effectively with a range of audiences. (3)
An ability to recognize ethical and professional responsibilities in engineering situations and make
informed judgments, which must consider the impact of engineering solutions in global, economic,
environmental, and societal contexts. (4)
Page 1 of 9
 An ability to function effectively on a team whose members together provide leadership, create a
collaborative and inclusive environment, establish goals, plan tasks, and meet objectives. (5)
An ability to acquire and apply new knowledge as needed, using appropriate learning strategies. (7)

PROGRAM SPECIFIC STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES

Civil Engineering Students
Apply knowledge in mathematics through differential equations; calculus-based physics; and general
chemistry, and at least one additional area of science. The graduates are also able to apply probability
and statistics to address uncertainty. (A)
Analyze and solve problems in a minimum of four (4) recognized major CE areas. (B)
Perform CE design in at least two civil engineering contexts by means of design experiences integrated
throughout the professional component of the curriculum. The graduates have the ability to include
principles of sustainability in design. (D)
Understand professional practice issues such as: procurement of work; bidding versus quality-based
selection processes; how the design professionals and the construction professions interact to construct
a project; the importance of professional licensure and continuing education; and/or other professional
practice issues. (E)
Understanding the basic concepts in project management, business, public policy, and leadership
through discussion in different courses. (F)

Environmental Engineering Students

Apply knowledge of mathematics through differential equations, probability and statistics, calculus-
based physics, chemistry (including stoichiometry, equilibrium, and kinetics), an earth science, a
biological science, and fluid mechanics. (A)
Formulate material and energy balances, and analyze the fate and transport of substances in and
between air, water, and soil phases. (B)
Design environmental engineering systems that include considerations of risk, uncertainty,
sustainability, life-cycle principles, and environmental impacts; and apply advanced principles and
practice relevant to the program objectives. (D)
Understand concepts of professional practice, project management, and the roles and responsibilities
of public institutions and private organizations pertaining to environmental policy and regulations. (E)

TEACHING STRATEGIES
The course will be taught using team- and project-based teaching methods. The topics will be covered on
the board and projector by the instructor and guest speakers during the lectures. Additional study material
will be posted on the course web site in advance; please review the posted material before each class. The
topics will be covered in a discussion format and many questions will be raised throughout. In certain
lectures, the student teams will present their projects and obtain feedback from other team members and
the instructor.

PREREQUISITES AND COREQUISITES

All students should have formally taken and successfully passed the exams of all required civil and
environmental engineering courses. The courses with design, writing and presentation content are
particularly important.

Page 2 of 9
TEXTS AND ANCILLARY MATERIALS
No dedicated textbook is available. Students should use the followings: textbooks and lecture notes from
the prerequisite courses, handouts provided in this and prerequisite courses, resources obtained from the
library and online resources, and consultation and email communications with experienced persons.

TECHNOLOGY REQUIREMENTS
The followings are recommended for online course components such as client meetings:

A computer, a webcam, and a headset ideally with a built-in microphone (samples).

A suitable location with a desk space and quiet environment conductive for focused work.
A download speed of 10 Mbps and an upload speed of 5 Mbps. An internet connection using an ethernet
cable between your computer and modem will be much faster and more consistent than Wi-Fi. You may
want to explore this option. You can test your speed using: https://www.speedtest.net

UNIVERSITY POLICIES
Policy Statement on Non-Discrimination on the basis of Disability (ADA)
The University is an equal opportunity educational institution. Please read The University’s Policy Statement
on Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability Americans with Disability Act Compliance.

Academic Accommodations
The University of Toledo is committed to provide equal access to education for all students. If you have a
documented disability or you believe you have a disability and would like information regarding academic
accommodations/adjustments in this course, please contact the Student Disability Services Office.

Anti-Bullying Policy
Bullying is hostile, destructive behavior, intentional and persistent in nature, directed at another individual.
It can be perpetrated by a single individual or a group. Bullying can take on many forms; physical, verbal,
relational and cyber. Bullying will not be tolerated. If you think that you may be subjected to bullying,
discrimination, or harassment, please report here.

Other university policies can be found here.

ACADEMIC POLICIES
Dishonesty and Misconduct
You should not engage in any type of dishonesty including plagiarism (i.e., claiming of words, ideas, artistry,
drawings or data of another person), cheating, misrepresentation of personal identity or performance,
submission of false information, unauthorized copying or use of copyrighted materials, and violations of
departmental policies or professional behaviour. Proper reference information should be given for all work
obtained from elsewhere including internet, textbooks, and computer software. Web addresses can also be
used as a reference. Dishonesty will not be tolerated. Related policies are found here. Any occurrence of
academic misconduct will result in a grade of F in the course. Students that receive a reduced course grade
as a result of academic misconduct will not be allowed to withdraw from the course and may not petition
for a GPA recalculation after retaking the course. Please refer to the Academic Dishonesty and Academic
Grievance policies for more details.

Page 3 of 9
 Missed Class or Meeting Policy
Attendance to class and meetings is mandatory for this course. The success of a team relies heavily on the
presence and equal contribution of all students. One student missing a class or team/client meeting will not
only affect the missing student but also place a burden on the other team members. Please notify the
instructor in advance if you have to miss a class or meeting due to extenuating circumstances. Unexcused
absences will reduce the student’s grade in the deliverables that follows the absence. Please refer to the
University of Toledo’s Missed Class Policy.

Communication Guidelines
You are required to regularly monitor the course web site for the posted marks and announcements. Many
important announcements will be made via the course web site. In the case of a discrepancy in a posted
mark, you must inform the instructor in a week from the date the mark is posted.

Smartphone use is not permitted during lectures and meetings to prevent distractions to the user and other
students nearby. Due to privacy requirements, taking the picture or recording the voice of others is not
permitted without prior permission of the instructor and others involved.

STUDENT SUPPORT SERVICES

University Libraries
To search for textbooks and research papers, please refer to the University Libraries.

The Counseling Center

Transitioning to the graduate school or maintaining a healthy well-being can be difficult. If you or a friend
ever feel overwhelmed adjusting to college or in need of crisis intervention or mental health services, please
contact the Counseling Center.

GRADING
Student teams will be judged based on the content and quality of the deliverables produced. All students
are expected to participate and contribute equally to the team for creating high-quality deliverables. The
project work is divided into six milestones, each requiring multiple deliverables. The milestones are designed
to give each team and team member continuous feedback as they make progress towards the final
deliverables. The final grade of each individual team member will be determined considering the assessment
data produced by the instructor, client and peers, as shown in the Table 1.

Table 1. Project Milestones and Associated Grade Points.

Client Technical Report
Power- Design Multi- Peer
Wk Due Dates Project Milestones Meeting Other Design Pts
Point Dwgs media Evals
Minutes Parts Calcs
2 Jan 25, 27 1. Project startup (in class) 2 1 3
4 Feb 8, 10 2. Draft scope of work 2 2 2 3 9
3a. Design methods,
6 Feb 22, 24 2 2 2 3 3 12
multimedia
Mar 8 3b. Final scope, alternative
8 2 3 3 3 3 3 17
Mar10(off) assessment results
4a. Selected design results;
9 Mar 15, 17 3 3 3 3 3 15
drawings; final multimedia.

Page 4 of 9
 4b. Draft Final report and
10 Mar 22, 24 2 3 3 3 3 3 17
presentation
5. Final products to Dr. Guner
12 Apr 5, 7 3 3 3 3 3 3 18
(incl. exit survey completion)
13 Apr 12, 14 6a. Final products to client 5 4 4 4 4 21
6b. Senior Design Expo
14 Apr 19, 21
presentations to Dr. Guner 5 3 8
15 Apr 28 6b. Senior Design Expo
Total points 10 18 21 16 16 18 21 120

The final course grade will be converted to a letter grade for each student using the scale shown in Table 2.

Table 2. Course Grade Scale for Total Points

A 93+ B+ 87-89 C+ 75-79 D+ 63-66 F <56
A- 90-92 B 83-86 C 70-74 D 60-62
B- 80-82 C- 67-69 D- 57-59

MILESTONE DELIVERABLES
Four final deliverables will be submitted to the client, as follows:
o Technical report,
o Design drawings,
o PowerPoint presentation,
o Multimedia file.
A poster and project-specific displays will be prepared and presented at the Senior Design Expo.
Students will additionally work on small activities related to project management, ethics, safety,
leadership, and entrepreneurship during weeks not shown in Table 1. These activities will be graded on
a pass/fail basis. Students not successfully completing these activities will not be permitted to pass the
class. The tentative schedule and topics are provided in Table 3.
More details on the deliverables and activities are provided below.

Table 3. Additional Activities

Wk Dates Topic Notes
Feb 1 Dr. Apul: Life Cycle Analysis You need your computer to follow along.
3
Feb 3 Dr. Guner: Project Management Dr. Guner will be in class.
Feb 15 Dr. Nims: PE Licensing Process and FE Exam Dr. Nims will join online.
5
Feb 17 Dr. Apul: FE Exam You need your computer to follow along.
Dean Toole: Integrated Design and Construction
Mar 1 Dean Toole will be in class.
7 (including contracting)
Mar 3 Dean Toole: ASCE’s Code of Ethics Dean Toole will be in class.
Mar 15 Dr. Chou: Transportation Engineering and FE Exam Dr. Chou will join online.
9
Mar 17 Dr. Berhan: Equity and Diversity Dr. Berhan will be in class.
Mar 29 No class (Holiday) —
11
Mar 31 Dr. Hu: Geotechnical Design and FE Exam Dr. Hu will join online.
Mr. Rapino, Mr. Haque, and Mr. Valdiviez
Apr 12 Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Intellectual Property
will join online.
13
Dean Toole: Code of Ethics to Prevention through
Apr 14 Dean Toole will be in class.
Design (with a focus on project safety)

Page 5 of 9
Client Meetings
You will meet with the client every other week (i.e., six times) at a minimum. These are shown with a
bold week numbers in Table 1. The presence of meeting minutes also indicates a meeting week. It is
your responsibility to ask for and schedule any additional meetings, as necessary.
Attendance to client meetings is mandatory for each team member.
Only the start-up meeting (in Week 2) will take place during class time. All other client meetings will be
outside the class time on either Thursday or Friday. You should set up a regular meeting time and online
meeting platform during Week 1.
Client meetings will be led by the team. Teams will present their project progress using a PowerPoint
presentation each time they meet with the client. Teams should practice their presentation through
additional group meetings to improve their marks for the in-class presentations as per Table 1 (see the
PowerPoint grade points).
You may wish to arrange additional client meetings (e.g., on Week 3 to present your draft scope of work).
No meeting minutes are required for any additional meetings beyond those shown in Table 1.

Meeting minutes
Meeting minutes should be taken during each client meeting.
Finalized meeting minutes should be submitted within 24 hrs after the meeting.
Submissions in pdf format will use the naming convention of, for example, Minutes1_Team3.pdf, and
be submitted to drgunercourse@gmail.com while CC’in the client.
You may start with the meeting minutes template Dr. Guner shared with you, and improve it as needed.
You should assign a team member to each action item and indicate who is responsible from what task.

Presentations
You present your presentation in class first, receive the feedback, improve it, and present the final
version to your client during your meeting in the same week.
Both the class and client presentations should be uploaded to the OneDrive folder by 8.00 am of the day
of the presentation, with the file name of, for example, Milestone1_Team3_Class.pptx and
Milestone1_Team3_Client.pptx)
Each student should present the slide they prepared. The student’s name should be on the bottom left
corner of each slide. The slide number should be on the bottom right. Avoid busy or distracting slide
layouts. You can help each other in improving the slides. However, do not prepare a slide and have
someone else present it; this is not fair to you. If you must prepare additional slides (e.g., due to another
member not contributing), show your name in the slide so that you get the credit.

Report
Reports for all Milestones will be submitted to Dr. Guner via drgunercourse@gmail.com. Reports for
Milestones 3, 4, and 6 must also be submitted to the client; CC the client when sending these reports to
Dr. Guner. Report contents are shown in Table 4. Use MS Word file format.
Reports should be submitted by 8.00 am of the day of the in-class presentation.
Report 1 is due by 8.00 am of the Friday of Week 2.
After Report 1, use tracked changes to indicate how the report has evolved.
To indicate each team member’s contribution to the report:

Page 6 of 9
 o Each team report should include a paragraph (before the cover page) indicating who did what work
in the report. If a team member has contributed less than others, a corrective action plan (e.g., more
work in the subsequent task) should be stated.
o Students should write their names at the top of the paragraph which they wrote.
o Don’t forget to use tracked changes each time you update the report.
Interim reports will be named as, for example, Team3_Milestone3a_Report.docx. The appendix with the
design drawings could separately be sent as Team3_Milestone3a_Drawings.pdf within the same email
message. The final report will be submitted as a single pdf file where all pages are oriented to avoid any
vertically oriented text. Use a naming convention of, for example, Team3_Final_Report.pdf. The Word
and AutoCAD files could additionally be sent to the client.
Please ensure that your Office software has all updates, and you use the latest .docx file format for your
documents.

Table 4: Sections to include in each milestone report.

Milestone 1 2 3b 4b 5 6
Cover page x x x x x
Disclaimer x x x x x
Table of contents x x x x x
1. Problem statement x x x x x
2. Objectives x x x x x
3. Constraints x x x x x
4. Alternatives x x x x x
5. Evaluation of alternatives x x x x
6. Design x x x x
7. Design Drawings x x x x
8. Video cover image and link x x x x
9. Cost estimate analysis x x x
10. Environmental analysis x x x
11. Social analysis x x x
12. Rating systems and awards x x x
13. Conclusion x x x
14. Next steps x x x
Appendix A: Contacts x x x x
Appendix B: Statement of qualifications x x x x x
Appendix C: Design calculations x x x x
Appendix D: Design drawings x x x x
Appendix E: As needed x x x
Design Calculations
Each project report will include detailed design calculations to
o show the steps and mathematical equations used in the design,
o include appropriate headings and the names of the methods used,
o clearly indicate the final numbers using appropriate significant figures,
o be prepared for the client to follow and understand easily.
A secondary calculation method will be used to show the validity of important numbers as a check.

Page 7 of 9
 All calculations will follow standard mathematical equation rules, including:
o the same fonts throughout,
o horizontal lines for divisions (as opposed to /)
A few equation examples are provided below as sampled. MathType software could be used.
Neat hand solutions could be scanned and used. Ensure sufficient margins of 1 in. for all edges.
L 1
n
L
xi ( L 1wki L 1 yk ) L
bi (1)
k 1

1
L
yi f ( L xi x) x
(2)
1 e
L E ANN
wij L
(3)
wij

Design Drawings
Each project report will include a set of drawings to
o show the main dimensions, material properties and design details,
o include the results of the entire design,
o be drawn on 11”x17” paper, following engineering CAD drawing standards incl. the title block.
AutoCAD software is recommended for the creation of drawings.

Multimedia
Each team will create an exciting video on their project. The quality of the video should reflect today’s
multimedia standards used in high-impact YouTube videos.
The video will have:
o a minimum resolution of 720p (1080p is desirable)
o a maximum duration of 5 minutes
o a maximum file size of 1 GB
o a format of .mp4 format with the name convention of, e.g., Team3_Milestone3_Video.mp4.
Title screen should indicate that this is a Senior Design Project in the Civil and Environmental Engineering
Department at the University of Toledo, Ohio, USA. Student and client names should be included as well.
The video should show the site, explain the problem, the alternatives considered, the proposed design
solution along with its cost, environmental, and social implications.
Drone recordings could be used for appropriate projects. A 3D model could be created and presented.
Free video editing tools could be used. An online search could show a comparison of currently available
editing software. One team member could overtake this role as per your workload distribution.
Submissions should send a download link. It is your responsibility to test the link before sending. A
broken link will be treated as no submission at all (see the late submission penalties below).
The videos meeting these standards will be posted on YouTube to reach a broader audience.

Peer Evaluations
Each student will complete the peer evaluations sheet after each milestone.
These sheets will be submitted to drgunercourse@gmail.com any time before or up to 24 hours after
the in-class presentation. Use the naming convention of, for example,
Team3_Milestone3_Evaluation_LastName.pdf.
Once received by Dr. Guner, these sheets will be kept confidential.

Page 8 of 9
 A team member’s grade (see Table 1) will be calculated as the average of all grades given by the student
and his/her peers.

Time Sheets
Each student will complete the time sheet spreadsheet (posted on Blackboard) on a daily basis.
Time spent and a brief description of the activity will be input.
Each team will keep this sheet in their shared folder so that each team member can edit anytime.
The communication lead of each team will send a pdf copy for this sheet when sending his/her peer
evaluations. Please name as for, example, Team3_Milestone3_Timesheet.pdf.

Exist Survey

Each student will complete the exit survey by the deadline indicated in Table 1.
The exist surveys are administered by the department. Although the survey asks for your name, the
results, and not your names, will be shared with the department faculty and staff after the final grades
are posted.
Each student will email a screen capture from the end of the survey to drgunercourse@gmail.com to
complete this requirement. Please name as Exist_Survey_Lastname.pdf
Students who has not completed the survey by the deadline will receive a mark of zero for the Milestone
5 deliverables. This is a short, 15-minute survey which should not give you any difficulty.

Late Submissions
25 % is deducted for each day the deliverable is late. For example, <24hrs late, 25 % deducted, 24-48 hrs
late, 50% deducted. These deductions are applicable to all team members.
Teams should aim to submit the work in advance and have a backup plan for timely submission in case
the person assigned to submit the work on time does not submit as expected.
Late submissions will receive a fail grade for the pass/fail assignments.

Page 9 of 9