Engagement in Practice: Capstone Design of a Real-world Transportation Interchange Project

Critical transportation and mobility needed to support a growing economy led local jurisdictional authorities to establish a $200 million airport infrastructure improvement program, which is solely focused on increasing roadway capacity for a critical area surrounding an international airport and associated industrial manufacturing facilities. The transportation improvement program includes three new interchanges and a realignment of the primary airport access road. The capstone design project at The Citadel focused on determining an optimal solution for one of the new interchange locations. The use of this real-world assignment as a capstone design project was enthusiastically supported by the region's airport authority, local jurisdictions, consulting engineering, and construction community. Students work in teams of 4-5 to develop design solutions to meet the needs of the larger community extending over two-semester course during their senior year curriculum. During previous year's course offering, 19 practicing professional engineers worked with students and provided design guidance for project sub-discipline areas. At the end of each semester, student teams presented their interchange designs including traffic, roadway, structural, geotechnical, drainage, construction, and project management. A professional engineer's expert review panel asked questions indicative of public meetings, evaluated presentations, ranked winning presentations, and provided valuable feedback. Students learned how to synthesize real-world design standards, use an engineering process to meet requirements, and address real world environmental, social, political, ethical, health and safety, constructability, and sustainability constraints. This project provided an academic enrichment and curriculum engagement for students to apply their knowledge to benefit the community. This paper discusses capstone design project objectives, student learning activities, educational outcome assessment mapping, faculty reflections and lessons learned.