Senior Design

A student and an industry member/alum talk at the annual Senior Design Expo.

Projects occur during fall and spring semesters, with some departments running projects across both semesters. Submit your project sponsorship by early September in order to be considered for that academic year.

Senior Design is a required course for seniors across many departments. It provides a capstone experience allowing students to tackle a "real-world" engineering design problem in some depth. At the end of the spring semester, students present their work in the Engineering Senior Design Expo to a broad audience inclusive of fellow students, faculty and industry partners.

Many of our departments work with industry and other external partners. We also offer an interdisciplinary senior design experience, allowing students from two or more departments to work together. 

Read more about the senior design project format.

Sponsor Benefits

Companies interested in sponsoring senior design projects will receive the following benefits:

  • Access to one or more teams of engineering seniors
  • Up to 30 weeks of engagement with the project teams
  • A final technical report and presentation with design recommendations (and potential prototype, if applicable)
  • Exclusive rights to any generated IP

Companies wishing to receive additional benefits across the entire academic year may choose to sponsor senior design through our Engineering Partnerships Program. For more information or to become a partner, contact Nick Lane at (716) 881-8051 or Christine Human at (716) 645-4374.

As part of their senior design course, a team of students from the University at Buffalo’s Department of Electrical Engineering built an electronics unit that can turn any guitar into an electric guitar.

Reinventing the electric guitar
As part of their senior design course, a team of students from the University at Buffalo’s Department of Electrical Engineering built an electronics unit that can turn any guitar into an electric guitar.

Sponsor Expectations

Sponsor interaction typically includes the following:

  1. Introducing the problem at the start of the project period during a meeting with student team
  2. Regular design review meetings (at least bi-weekly is preferred) with student teams
  3. Attendance at the final Senior Design Expo poster session and/or presentation at the conclusion of the project

We respectfully request an investment be made to the Senior Design Course Support Fund. (For more information, contact seas-exl@buffalo.edu.) This gift will support students in their projects including prototyping material, laboratory and machine shop use and investment, software and computing needs, and the Senior Design Expo.

Submit an application to sponsor a SEAS Senior Design Project.