Industrial Design Final Bachelor Project

In the final year of the Industrial Design Bachelor’s, the students are offered the opportunity, through this course, to undertake individual projects. They learn to select the most suitable design process, develop functional prototypes, and consider stakeholder experiences in their final bachelor project.

Teachers: All professors of Industrial Design Faculty, the contact person is Education Director Y. Lu.
Academic level: Bachelor.
Stakeholders: Project coach (squad coach/leader), experts from practice (involved in the squad or stakeholders outside the university/hybrid teachers), PhD candidates, student peers.
Disciplines: Industrial Design.
Resources: Application domains are from different squads, so every application domain has its own resources.

SETUP

The final bachelor project is executed in one of the Industrial Design’s squad’s application domains. In each squad staff members are gathered with specific expertise; each squad therefore covers a specific set of expertise areas. Students should make a deliberate choice in what expertise areas they would like to develop in their final bachelor project and choose a specific squad to demonstrate a balanced development. They have an opportunity to read the online descriptions of the squads, as well as visit the Project Market and talk to the staff members to get a good impression of what the projects entail.

During the project, students are supervised by their project coach—the squad leader or another staff member in the squad. They are also supported in their process by, for instance, the squad leader, other scientific staff members, experts from practice (involved in the squad or stakeholders outside the university you have involved in the project yourself), experienced master’s students and PhD candidates. The students present their results in the squad, together with other bachelor and master students, and will receive feedback on their work.

If for their FBP a student prefers a specific project coach within a squad or if they want to propose their own project, they can ask a coach with assessment rights to confirm this agreement using a “handshake”.
The student can approach their preferred coach and discuss with them their motivation and ideas. If the coach agrees and is available, they inform CSA about the handshake.

INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES (ILOS)

The learning goal of this project is to demonstrate that students can conduct a design (research) project with minor guidance; strengthening their professional identity and vision and demonstrating their overall competence in designing through their individual final design project.

The final bachelor project is an individual project. During your final bachelor project, students choose the design (research) process most appropriate for the design (research) challenge and address the relevant attitude, skills and knowledge to the challenge. They go through several iterations and develop a functional prototype that features (part of) an interactive system; and/or provides a partial experience (of a service) for the stakeholder considered.

LEARNING ACTIVITIES

Students participate in an introductory Information Session;
students present their work;
students create a portfolio;
students participate in squad workshops;
students go through an iterative design process;
students create a demonstration of their project;
students write a report;
students participate in feedback sessions with peers and coaches.

ASSESSMENT

At the conclusion of the final bachelor project, the final competence assessment takes place. Students are assessed on their ability to integrate different competencies. During the assessment, overall competence of design demonstrated in the quality of the deliverables, scientific and professional skills, professional identity and vision and development with respect to the expertise areas of students are evaluated.

At the end of the final bachelor project, students reflect on their overall competence of design and demonstrate they have achieved the required level of development in the expected competencies. These are described in the Rubrics booklet.

Students include a comprehensive reflection on their professional identity and provide their vision on design. In contrast to other project assessments, students will need to provide sufficient evidence in the portfolio of their achievements in the courses they have completed. Students can support their achievements with appropriate extra-curricular activities such as exhibitions, awards, accepted papers, project management or a successful start-up or crowd-sourcing activity.

During the (public) presentation students’ first and second examiner, (respectively their project coach and an examiner from another squad), will be present. Together, they determine the level of development a student has achieved on the different elements described in the final bachelor project rubrics.

The assessment is based on the deliverables:

Demonstrator (as demonstrated on the Demo Day)
Report
Portfolio
Presentation and oral exam

The expected levels of the deliverables are also defined in the Final Bachelor Project rubrics. You can find these in the Rubrics booklet on the Forms and Files page.

The corresponding deadlines for the above-mentioned deliverables can be found in the Year Planning on the Forms and Files page, on the separate deliverables pages you can find information on how to hand in each deliverable.

Grades for the final bachelor project are confirmed during the plenary graduation meeting. Assessors fill-out the rubric and provide an evaluation for each topic prior to the meeting. During the meeting examiners deliberate on the grades to achieve consensus on their distribution. At the end of the final bachelor project, students receive a grade rounded to the nearest half grade on a scale of 1-10.

EVALUATION

Students present their results in the squad, together with other bachelor and master students and receive verbal and written feedback on their work.

There are also evaluation sessions per squad and withing students’ projects. These sessions are about the content and organization of their projects and their coaches.