Senior Design

---

Lab Policies

LAB ACCESS

BELS will assign your group’s lab space in consultation with the Senior Design faculty. Shortly after your space has been assigned, you will receive a message from the ADC key systems where you will need to accept the terms and conditions of access. After that, BSOE facilities will enable your access.

FOOD

Consuming food and appliances for cooking or storing food are not allowed in any lab space. For example, please do not bring hotplates, rice cookers, microwaves, mini-refrigerators, or similar appliances into your assigned senior design spaces.

DRINK

You can only bring liquids that are in a COMPLETELY SPILL-PROOF CONTAINER into the lab spaces. Additionally, they should be stored away in your backpack when not in use. Please note that liquids often served by coffee shops in an insulated cup with only a snap-on plastic top DO NOT meet the criteria of a completely spill-proof container. You will need to transfer the contents to an approved container OUTSIDE OF THE LAB or consume the contents elsewhere.

EQUIPMENT

Test and Measurement

As senior design students, you are aware of the type of test and measurement equipment that BELS has at its disposal. Nevertheless, if there is some more specialized equipment that you need but haven’t seen in the BELS labs in the past, we would recommend that you still ask us about it. There is a possibility that we have the equipment, or perhaps we can point you in the direction of faculty researchers who may have the type of specialized equipment that you need. To request the typical lab equipment found in various BELS labs for your senior design space (oscilloscopes, function generators, power supplies, multimeters, etc.), please open a support ticket for your request.

Other

If you need other items for your senior design group, such as office items (chairs, desks, stools, whiteboards ) or perhaps hand tools or soldering irons, then please open a support ticket.

ADMINISTRATIVE COMPUTER ACCOUNT

In general, we would like to keep this level of access to a minimum. Unless your group is large, only one of your team members will likely need this level of access. Many groups, if not most, don’t need any members to have this level of access. If you need this level of access only a handful of times, say, to install software on the computer, you don’t need to become an administrator. BELS staff are more than happy to handle this for you without the necessity of group members needing to have elevated privileges. Feel free to reach out to BELS for more info.

If you or members of your group need administrative-level access to one or more computers, please open a support ticket for your request.

FABRICATION

Fabricating in a senior design project space is not allowed. If you need to do fabrication, you need to use the fabrication lab. In the senior design spaces, you can construct items using hand tools such as a screwdriver or Allen wrench, but the use of power tools, hammers, saws, etc., is not allowed. Again, all of this type of construction needs to occur in the fabrication lab.

You can find more information about the fabrication lab.

---

Resources Available

STOCKROOM

BELS hosts a stock room in BE40 (basement of Jack Baskin), open to students, staff, and faculty on weekdays from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.  Electrical and electronic components (resistors, capacitors, transistors, ICs, etc.), small hardware, and common electrical connectors can be purchased via recharge or student misc fee.

For more details, visit BELS stockroom.

3D PRINTERS

We have several Crealty 3D PLA printers available for senior design teams to use. Many senior design spaces already have one or more printers. If you need a printer and don’t already have one in your space, or you need more than what is currently available, please open a support ticket.

COMPUTERS

All the senior design spaces have desktop computers. If you find that you need more than what is currently in the space, please open a support ticket.

LAPTOPS

We have a limited number of very capable laptops available for senior design groups at no cost. To request a laptop, please open a support ticket.

---

Other helpful services

POSTER PRINTING

Often, senior design teams will be required to present their findings at a poster presentation at the end of the academic year. Your poster will be printed for this purpose without a charge as long as it is submitted several days in advance. Otherwise, rush fees will apply.

To submit your poster or for more details, including fees, visit BELS Poster.

Posters submitted with less than four FULL business days lead time will incur a rush fee. Please submit your poster with as much lead time as possible. It is cheaper for you and less of a strain on our resources. Everybody wins!

---