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Engineering Projects in Community Service -EPICS -is a service-learning program that was initiated at Purdue University in the Fall of 1995.Under this program, undergraduate students in engineering earn academic credit for long-term team projects that solve technology based problems for local community service organizations.The program has grown to include 20 project teams with approximately 250 students participating during the 1999 academic year.Each EPICS project team consists of ten to fifteen students.The teams are interdisciplinary including students from Electrical, Computer, Mechanical, Civil, Aerospace, Industrial and Materials Engineering as well as from Computer Science, Chemistry, Sociology, Nursing, Visual Design, English and Education.The teams are vertically integrated -each is a mix of freshman, sophomores, juniors and seniors -and a student can participate in a project for up to three and a half years.The continuity provided by this structure allows projects to last for many years.Projects of significant size and impact are thus possible.The goals of the EPICS program include: providing students with multi-year, team-based, design and development experience; teaching students, by direct experience, how to interact with each other and with customers to specify, design, develop and deploy systems that solve real problems; and showing engineering students how their expertise can benefit even the most disadvantaged members of their community.A national EPICS program is being initiated to expand this highly successful service learning model.Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Wisconsin and the University of Notre Dame will partner with the existing program at Purdue University to form local teams at their respective institutions as well as to network teams of students at the different institutions.These networked teams will be able to collaborate on issues at a regional or national scale.backgrounds to achieve these goals.They thus need educational experiences that can help them develop these skills.Community service agencies face a future in which they must rely to a great extent upon technology for the delivery, coordination, accounting, and improvement of the services they provide.They often possess neither the expertise to use nor the budget to design and acquire a technological solution that is suited to their mission.They thus need the help of people with strong technical backgrounds.The Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) program provides a service-learning structure that enables these two groups to work together and thereby satisfy each other's needs.This structure supports long-term projects in which teams of undergraduates in engineering are matched with community service agencies that request technical assistance.Under the guidance of faculty in engineering, these EPICS project teams work closely over many years with their partner community service agencies to define, design, build, and deploy the systems the agencies need.The results are systems that have a significant, lasting impact on the community service agencies and the people they serve.Through this service, the EPICS students learn many valuable lessons in engineering, including the role of the partner, or "customer," in defining an engineering project; the necessity of teamwork; the difficulty of managing and leading large projects; the need for skills and knowledge from many different disciplines; and the art of solving technical problems.They also learn many valuable lessons in citizenship, including the role of community service in our society; the significant impact that their engineering skills can have on their community; and that assisting others leads to their own substantial growth as individuals, engineers, and citizens. The Phases and Structure of EPICS ProjectsEach EPICS project involves a team of eight to fifteen undergraduates, one or more community service agencies, and a faculty or industry advisor.Each team is vertically integrated, consisting of a mix of freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors.Each team is constituted for several years --from initial project definition through final deployment --with students participating for several semesters.This structure enables long-term projects.Over time, each project has five phases: Finding Project Partners, Assembling a Project Team, Project Proposal, System Design and Development, and System Deployment and Support.Phase 1 -Finding Project Partners: Each EPICS project addresses the technology-based problems of one or more service organizations in the local community.Agencies with appropriate problems must therefore be found.When planning for the EPICS Program started in the Fall of 1994, we were able to contact many different service agencies at the same time by making a presentation about the program and its goals at the monthly meeting of the directors of all local United Way agencies.This single presentation led to many discussions with individual agencies and a long list of potential projects.From this list of potential projects, those best suited for the EPICS Program were selected.Projects are selected based on their:Page 5.281.2
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