Dear Electrical, Computer and Biomedical Engineering Seniors,

This message is to clarify the long term pre-requisites intended for the relatively new courses ELE 480 and 481, Capstone Design I and II, respectively, as well as the slightly more relaxed "interim" pre-requisites that the department will allow during the upcoming 2007-08 academic year. The "interim" pre-reqs are meant to ease the transition as the department phases into the new ELE and CPE curricula, which require ELE 480-481.

ELE 480-481 were created to be a senior-level, "cumulative and culminating", open-ended, multi-disciplinary team-based design experience required by our national accrediting agency, ABET. They incorporate knowledge gained in the technical courses required during the first 3 years of your major and apply that knowledge to a "real world" problem suggested by industry to give students "real-world" experience. If students take the course too early in their studies, they will not have adequate technical knowledge, lab skills or programming experience to do well or to be of much help to their team-mates on the project.

The pre-requisites for ELE 480 is "senior standing" and permission of instructor. Senior standing basically means that you have completed all the required engineering, science, math and programming courses listed in the freshmen, sophomore, and junior years of the curriculum for your major, and that you are in your final, senior year of the degree program. For example, Electrical Engineering majors should complete the following courses before enrolling in ELE 480:

• CSC 200
• EGR 105, 106
• ELE 201, 202, 205, 212, 215, 306, 313, 314, 322, 331, 342, 343
• MTH 141, 142, 243, 362, 451 (or IME 411)
• PHY 203, 204, 205, 273, 274, 275, 306

Since the Capstone Design course involves working on a year long project with the same team-mates, ELE 480 must be taken in the Fall and ELE 481 the subsequent spring of the senior year. However, some students who are "out-of-sequence" with the traditional 4 year curriculum are having trouble fitting these 2 sequential courses into the last year of their coursework at URI. Consequently, for the 2007-08 academic year, the department has relaxed somewhat the pre-requisites for ELE 480-481 to allow enrollment of any student who is more than half-way through their junior year in the ELE, CPE or BME curricula and who has a serious plan for graduating before December 2008.

Specifically, you may request a permission number from the department chair to enroll in ELE 480 this Fall if you have:

1. completed all freshmen and sophomore technical (MTH, PHY, CSC, EGR, ELE) courses required in your major,
2. completed at least half of the junior ELE and CSC courses required in your major,
3. are planning to graduate on or before December 2008, and
4. plan to take ELE 481 in Spring 2008.

If you wish to register for ELE 480 in Fall 2007, you must present a realistic, written plan to the department chair demonstrating that you can graduate by 2008. That plan should include the following:

1. a list of all courses you plan to take each semester until you graduate. The list should include the number of credits for each course and the total number of credits for each semester. Please double check that the courses you plan to take during Fall 2007 are indeed being offered at times available to you.
2. Completed curriculum checksheet (copy can be downloaded from http://www.ele.uri.edu/advising/checksheets/index.html ). Checksheets     Next to courses you've already passed, put a check mark. Next to courses you plan to take, write the semester you plan to enroll in the course, e.g. F'07, Spr'08, Su'08 or F'08.
3. an email address and/or phone number to contact you.

regards,
Prof. Boudreaux-Bartels