Professor John Hanks ’86 from Texas A&M University's Department of Biomedical Engineering is the lead instructor for its senior design program.
It wasn’t until my senior year in 1986 at Texas A&M University that I fell in love with engineering. From my freshman through junior years I did well in class, but I hadn’t experienced that one special course that truly inspired me—until my senior design class in the Department of Biomedical Engineering.
This capstone course for seniors enables students to work closely with external sponsors to design a device or system that can potentially offer a solution to a real-world need. For a fledgling engineer and soon-to-be graduate, my senior design project was both engaging and challenging, and left an indelible impression.
My team was tasked with developing a PC-based speech-recognition system capable of recognizing 10 words from four different speakers. Bear in mind, this was the mid-80s when speech-to-text technology was still in its early days. I’m proud to say we succeeded, and I was thrilled to be part of a project so ahead of its time. (Now—nearly 30 years later—smartphones recognize spoken words with amazing accuracy.)
The experience taught me about the drama that energizes the field of engineering. We had to meet strict deadlines. Our designs either worked or they didn’t, and how they were engineered definitely affected the outcome. Unlike my other courses, the hands-on experience of building a product that had potential commercial value inspired me. Senior design also taught me that engineering was a team effort, and that teams with esprit de corps could accomplish great things. I learned that engineering was more than a job; it was meaningful and fun. These lessons helped me become a better engineer and eventually a business leader. Senior design helped me realize that I could lead product development teams to impact people’s lives—maybe even change the world.
Returning to My Roots
After graduating, I spent the majority of my career at National Instruments, dreaming up new software and hardware products that would increase engineers’ and scientists’ productivity. During my tenure from 1990 to 2013, National Instruments grew into a $1.2 billion company, and I owe much of my personal success to my Texas A&M engineering education.
I believe in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and its senior design experience. That’s why after 25 years of industry work, I made the switch to academia and joined the biomedical engineering program as a professor of practice. As part of my new role, I’ll be succeeding Professor Mike McShane as lead instructor for our senior design program. For me, this is an incredible opportunity to give back by sharing my business, management and engineering experience with biomedical engineering students.
The Senior Design Experience
During their final year in the program, senior design projects dominate our students’ lives—students become immersed in the device-design process, project management and team dynamics. They also must meet stringent Food and Drug Administration guidelines for design control. Our students receive faculty guidance but are responsible for all aspects of their projects, from engineering to communications, including presenting their work to their respective faculty mentors and sponsors. Throughout two semesters, each student team spends a combined 1,500 hours on its project.
A particular strength of the senior design program is its close connection with sponsors. For many students, interacting with a sponsor is their first taste of working with an engineer from an environment they are likely to encounter upon graduating. This is a pivotal aspect of bringing the real world into the classroom. Projects come from a variety of sponsors who range from Fortune 500 companies to startups. These include various medical device companies, local clinicians, the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences and organizations such as Engineering World Health, the Texas Heart Institute and NASA contractor Wyle Laboratories. Other sponsors include National Instruments, Integra Life Sciences and PROFUSA.
Each sponsor assigns a project with requirements, milestones and deliverables. Working with their sponsors, students have developed a number of innovative projects, including wearable wireless sensors for tracking compliance and fit of back braces; a low-cost device for testing diabetic neuropathy; surgical instruments such as a new retractor for heart valve re placement; and an “organ-on- a-chip” that simulates responses of organs to drug therapies, reducing testing in animals and humans.
A Win-Win Partnership
The program enables sponsors to tap into students’ knowledge and creativity to explore innovative ideas and prototypes that are early in the development cycle or that may not be funded. Students today have grown up in a technology-laden world, and they want to use technology to solve problems.
As an added benefit, sponsors receive access to these talented students at a fraction of the cost associated with hiring full-time employees. Sponsors can fund a senior design team for a $5,000 donation to the department. In many organizations, the total cost for a new hire is more than $120,000. Through the senior design program, a sponsor gets four to six engineering students for nine months. During this time, sponsors have the opportunity to conduct an “extended interview” of sorts with these soon-to-be graduates.
Our sponsors use senior design projects to evaluate a student’s work ethic as well as his or her communication, team and leadership skills. Our students sign non-disclosure agreements so that sponsors may request assignment of all intellectual property rights prior to the start of a project. In some standout cases, our students have applied for a joint provisional patent and even formed a company co-owned with their team sponsors.
Join Us
Senior design projects are a great starting point for corporations, startups, individuals and other external sponsors who have an idea and want to develop a prototype solution. I encourage you to support the biomedical engineering senior design program and to help provide our students with an inspiring experience. I know that this opportunity can be the foundation for a successful future.
By John Hanks ’86
Professor of Practice and Course Instructor for Senior Design
Department of Biomedical Engineering
Texas A&M University
Texas A&M Foundation
The Texas A&M Foundation is a nonprofit organization that solicits and manages investments in academics and leadership programs to enhance Texas A&M’s capability to be among the best universities.
