2023 Capstone Consortium Meeting Hosted at Kyoto Uzumasa Campus  

The kickoff meeting of the newly launched Capstone Consortium was held on April 26, 2023.
 
The Capstone is a project-based learning program for 3rd-year and 4th-year engineering students at KUAS. Groups of students choose from one of the many companies partnered with KUAS, discuss solutions to problems presented by the partnered companies, design, prototype, run testing and analyze the results, and then finally propose their solution to the companies.
 
The Capstone Consortium serves as a constantly evolving platform for human resources development through industry-university collaboration. Companies and universities work together to improve the operation of the program while verifying learning outcomes from both the company and university perspectives. KUAS is currently working with many partnered companies for the Capstone Project, including Nidec Corporation, SHIMADZU CORPORATION, CASTEM Co., Ltd., Matsui Seisakusho Co., Ltd., Deloitte Tohmatsu Consulting LLC, and many more.

The meeting started with an opening address by President Masafumi Maeda. President Maeda spoke about how KUAS’ academic objectives were synonymous with initiatives that occurred during the Meiji Era of Japan when the country opened up to the outside world and adopted knowledge from other nations. This was followed by an award ceremony to express gratitude to the partnered companies that participated in last year’s Capstone Project.
 
Most of the meeting was reserved for a panel discussion in which Vice President Osamu Tabata and representatives and advisors from partnered companies (CASTEM Co., Ltd., SHIMADZU CORPORATION, Nidec Corporation, Matsui Seisakusho Co., Ltd., Deloitte Tohmatsu Consulting LLC,) that participated in the last Capstone Project reflected on their experience and gave advice to companies looking to join the project in 2023 or future years. Topics covered in this panel discussion included: tips on advising students, progress and schedule management, setting objectives and quality of final deliverables, and communicating throughout the project. We were able to receive interesting and insightful comments from each member.

Mr. Mochizuki, SHIMADZU CORPORATION: “As a Project Leader, it is important to push the students to visualize their goals, and set milestones to approach their goals in a structured way.”
 
Mr. Masutani, CASTEM Co., Ltd.: “There was one instance where they were not able to succeed in their project by the deadline of the interim announcement. But the important thing is to let the students experience these small failures while guiding them away from big failures.”
 
Mr. Oochi, Deloitte Tohmatsu Consulting LLC: “It is equally important to maintain a constant dialog with the students to avoid small problems from becoming big ones.”
 
Mr. Matsui, Matsui Seisakusho Co., Ltd.: “During our project (because of the pandemic) we did a lot of our communication over Zoom. In that kind of setting, it is difficult to tell if the student is listening attentively or not, taking notes or not, etc. Before one can even address issues like this, I felt that it was important to build a trust-based relationship with the students.”
 
The panel discussion ended with the participating members fielding questions from the audience. These questions included topics such as methods for finding a suitable advisor in one’s organization and response to situations in which there are conflicts of personality with the students. 

Vice President Osamu Tabata, Dean of KUAS Faculty of Engineering and master of ceremonies for the consortium meeting, brought the event to a close by thanking the companies, students, and faculty members for their attendance showing gratitude for the opportunity to directly listen to the opinions and experiences of all members involved. A tour of the KUAS Engineering Building facilities and an exchange meeting between KUAS members and representatives of the partnered companies were held afterward.
 
This year’s Capstone Project will take place over the course of ten months, with final presentations taking place in January 2024. KUAS looks forward to not only the projects presented by the students but also the growth that these students experience through the teamwork and leadership of the appointed advisors.