Advise a student design team

Advisor benefits

• Provide a valuable experience for BME seniors, while supporting the BME department.

• Have the opportunity to screen and ultimately recruit graduating seniors.

• Enjoyable experience that provides personal and professional growth.

Course overview

• Project-oriented course in which students work to develop, design, and test a biomedical device under the guidance of experienced engineers.

• Students work in teams of four to six students. Each advisor works with one team.

• Course is set up as a two-semester sequence (Fall and Spring).

Fall

• First four weeks are dedicated to giving students intense exposure to clinical challenges in one of the University of Minnesota Academic Health Center clinics.

• Following the clinical exposure phase, students research a specific clinical need and develop a concept for a medical device that would address that need.

• Students learn about different aspects of general product design, development, and commercialization through a seminar series. Advisors are welcome to participate as either audience members or speakers in their specific fields of expertise.

Spring

• Students build and test their prototype device while attending lectures on issues specific to medical devices.

Advisor responsibilities

• Assist students in identifying a project topic during the clinical exposure phase.

• Provide guidance on the design problem and feedback about progress.

• Assess the final design and individual student performance.

• Attend at least a biweekly campus meeting with your group for about one hour.

• Attend mid-semester and end-of-semester presentations by students.