Engineering Capstone (also formerly known as Innovation Design Clinic) challenges UC Merced’s engineering students to become entrepreneurs of their knowledge, skills and research applications.
Partner organizations and/or corporations play a vital role by helping the students gain real-world experience and skills that will carry them into their future careers, while the partners also get solutions to their own engineering needs.
Engineering Capstone provides UC Merced's graduating seniors opportunities to learn and contribute in teams that include practicing engineers and other professionals from partner and sponsoring organizations.
The Capstone teams focus on engineering design projects chosen based on their potential for significant near-term effects on communities, organizations and/or industries in the region. The commitment of the teams and partners, combined with the richness and intensity of the Innovate to Grow competition, greatly enhances the traditional capstone experience.
Through Capstone, classroom learning and students' research activity are coordinated with real-world design projects developed with partner organizations and industries to help share diverse approaches to designing and building solutions that fulfill client-based objectives.
Industry partners contribute sponsorships to the program's operation, and each project sponsor’s involvement ranges from providing funds to the Innovate to Grow program, to engaging students in industry experiences.
We seek opportunities for students with partner organizations and industries to collaborate, discover solutions to common problems, create and streamline networking, and increase both radical and incremental innovation.
As industries and organizations become increasingly knowledge-based, and as products, processes and business systems become more complex, UC Merced engineering students are becoming an essential part of the industry and are contributing to regional economic, social and cultural growth.
You may search all past projects of Innovate to Grow since 2012, and current student teams and projects.
You may propose a project that can be evaluated for fit in Engineering Capstone, Software Capstone, or an internship, or potentially collaborative research with Faculty at UC Merced.
