For students in the NDSU College of Engineering, the senior design program is the bridge between classroom learning and career success, and a glimpse of what’s possible when education and industry come together. In this culminating experience, students partner with industry sponsors to tackle real challenges, including designing solutions, managing complex projects and working directly with professionals who expect results.

From advanced manufacturing technology to large-scale construction planning, recent senior design projects show how NDSU students are gaining hands-on experience that closely mirrors the work they will do after graduation.

One such project partnered students with Marvin Windows to improve how temperature is monitored during window manufacturing. When windows move through an industrial oven, similar to a conveyor-style pizza oven, maintaining precise thermal conditions is critical to quality and consistency.

The team of Michael Schwantz, Karsten Klein, Brennan Wiederrich and Esten Hiebert was tasked with designing a puck-shaped device that could travel through the oven and measure temperature at multiple points, while also transmitting that data wirelessly in real time.

“My role was mainly the coding and plotting the temperature data,” said electrical engineering major Michael Schwantz. “We were measuring temperatures in different spots so Marvin can identify hot zones and understand what’s happening inside the oven.”

Working directly with an industry sponsor gave the team valuable insight into professional expectations. “The communication was really clear,” said Karsten Klein, also an electrical engineering major. “It felt very organized, and I never left meetings with unanswered questions. That’s exactly what you want to experience before going into industry.”

The project challenged students to apply skills from across their NDSU education, including circuit design, PCB layout and embedded systems. “One of the most challenging parts was moving from a breadboard to a printed circuit board,” Schwantz said. “You want to get it right the first time and that pressure is very real.”

That realism is intentional, and it’s a defining feature of the senior design program.

The same hands-on, industry-driven approach shaped another project focused on construction of the new Clay County Law Enforcement Center in Moorhead, Minnesota. The 60,000-square-foot facility will serve both the Clay County Sheriff’s Department and the City of Moorhead Police Department, and student teams were tasked with developing full construction proposals for the project.

Construction management students planned everything from site logistics and traffic flow to sequencing trades across multiple floors of the building. “We worked on zoning the site, where cranes go, where parking and dumpsters go, and then sequencing the entire build from start to finish,” said construction management major Dino Steko.

For the students, the project closely mirrored what they will face in their careers. “It really prepares you for the real world,” Steko said. “You’re creating estimates, safety plans, schedules and making sure your final proposal is something an owner would actually want to choose.”

Reed Neubert, another construction management major, said the project tied together everything he had learned at NDSU. “Scheduling, estimating, project management, all the classes we took led up to this,” he said. “It felt like the final step before starting our careers.”

That preparation is already paying off. “I’ve got a job lined up,” Neubert added.

Together, these projects highlight the core value of the senior design program at NDSU, giving students meaningful experience solving real problems for real clients. By working alongside industry partners like Marvin Windows and Construction Engineers, Inc., students graduate with more than a degree, they leave with confidence, practical skills and a clear understanding of what it means to be an engineer or construction professional.