Expectations of EPICS advisors:

• Provide mentorship of projects on a weekly basis
• Support EPICS course expectations (participation in professional development activities, peer evaluations, etc.)
• Complete assessment of students (mid-term and final assessment/grading, enter grades into Brightspace or myPurdue)
• Participate multiple semesters or years

Benefits to EPICS advisors:

• EPICS provides administrative support and curricular structure for mentoring undergraduate design teams
  • Curricular structure includes scheduling, syllabus, professional development opportunities, assessment process, and TA admin support
• Ability to explore new design areas and identify potential graduate students
• Help meet education outcomes grants & mentoring goals for promotion/tenure
• NSF Supplemental Funding Opportunity: Supplemental Funding Opportunity to Support Student Design Projects. Participating Divisions - Directorate for Engineering
  • Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental and Transport Systems (CBET)
  • Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation (CMMI)
  • Electrical, Communications, and Cyber Systems (ECCS)

EPICS depends on the support of corporations, foundations, institutions and friends to carry out its mission. Your involvement can be in the form of financial support (refer to information below), as well as leadership support, both at the local and national program level.

Giving to the Purdue EPICS program:

A $5,000 donation supports the operation and development of existing EPICS teams:

• Team expenses: EPICS prototypes are deployed with not-for-profit corporations located off campus or with university organizations. Gift funds may be used to acquire the hardware, software or other materials needed for the construction and delivery of the team's prototypes.
• Student travel: Financial support ensures students can travel to areas related to their teams' projects. Funds may be used to cover the cost of student travel between EPICS sites or field visits necessary for the success of a project.
• Student presentation opportunities: Representatives of EPICS are often asked to make special presentations regarding the program at key events and activities. Students are often the best spokespeople for such events as the students' perspectives on the success of the program are highly compelling. The trips may have costs associated to preparing the professional level presentations expected, such as display boards, posters and general handout materials. Gifts can help cover those types of expenses, so that more students may experience these opportunities.
• Laboratory supplies and materials: EPICS is responsible for providing laboratory space and the basic infrastructure required for students to design, develop and test their prototypes. Gifts can assist in supplying the materials students need to perform their essential team functions.
• Awards and recognition: Recognition is an important part of the educational experience for deserving students. EPICS would like to recognize individual and team achievements. For example, hosting celebration events or supplying a simple token of gratitude to acknowledge the deployment of resources to a community partner when a project is completed. Gifts may help make such recognition possible.

$5,000 contributors are listed on the EPICS website and recognized in a wall monitor near the well-frequented Kurz Atrium in the Neil Armstrong Hall of Engineering, displaying their corporation or foundation brand logo. For more information about financially supporting EPICS, please contact [email protected].

We at EPICS are making intentional moves to be more connected to our alums. Please stay tuned to this page for upcoming developments in ways that your relationship with EPICS can continue. In the meantime, please consider the following ways that you can be involved with EPICS:

• Design reviews: Interested in getting back to campus?  We have formal design reviews twice each semester and having alums as part of the design reviews add a great deal to the experience.  If you would be willing to be a design reviewer during the midterm and/or final design reviews, please contact us at [email protected] to schedule a time.
• EPICS in your community: In addition to the program at Purdue, EPICS has an active presence in many other universities, middle and high schools, nationally and internationally.  If you are interested in bringing EPICS to your community or a university/college/school, start by contacting the EPICS Outreach Program Manager [email protected].

EPICS was initiated as a two-way partnership between the university and the community. The EPICS Corporate/Foundation Partners Program expands this relationship to a three-way partnership of the university, the community and industry.

Corporate partners' involvement can be in the form of leadership support as well as financial support, both at the local or national level.

Forms of leadership support may include:

• Guest speaker: Share thoughts and professional experiences with EPICS students during a lecture or professional development session
• Team advisor: Advise an EPICS team at an EPICS site
• Corporate EPICS ambassador: Network within your own company to advance the efforts of EPICS
  • Resource acquisition: Leverage resources from your employer to help sponsor an EPICS team
  • Leadership identification: Help identify leaders in your organization who might also become future advocates for EPICS
• Design reviewer: Serve as a technical reviewer for EPICS teams.

For more information on how to become involved with EPICS, please contact [email protected]

Community service agencies face a future in which they must take advantage of technology to deliver the services they provide. They need the help of people with strong technical backgrounds.

Undergraduate students face a future in which they will need more than solid expertise in their discipline to succeed. They will be expected to work with people of many different backgrounds to identify and achieve goals. They need educational experiences that can help them broaden their skills.

The challenge is to bring these two groups together in a mutually beneficial way. In response to this challenge, Purdue University has created EPICS. EPICS is a unique program in which teams of undergraduates design, build and deliver real systems to solve engineering-based problems for community service organizations.

The selection of community partners is based on these key criteria:

• Significance: Not all projects can be undertaken, so partners whose projects should provide the greatest benefit to the community are given priority.
• Level of technology: Projects must be challenging but within the capabilities of undergraduates. While EPICS draws from many disciplines, each team must have an engineering design component.
• Expected duration: Projects that will span several semesters, or even years, offer the greatest opportunity for students to participate in an extensive design experience. It also has proven valuable to have a mix of short-term (one semester to one year) and long-term (multiyear) projects, in that the short-term projects build confidence and help establish the relationship between the student and the community partner.
• Availability of appropriate students and mentors: EPICS works very hard to attract a broad base of students, but there are projects that require specific expertise. We may need to limit the number of projects that require specific expertise, depending on the availability of students with that expertise, as well as the availability of qualified faculty, staff or community advisors for the teams.
• Funding: No costs are required from the partners for typical development of EPICS projects. For large projects or projects that may need to be replicated in large numbers, outside funding may be required, with the expectation that EPICS would work with the community partner to secure this funding.
• Project partner commitment: A crucial element of the program has been the commitment of individuals in the partner organizations to work with the students.

Expectations of our partners include:

• Meeting with the students three times each semester
• Responding via email or phone every one or two weeks
• Agreement to assume the majority of liability for projects after completion and delivery
• Agreement to participate in the maintenance and service of the delivered project
• Willingness to work with the student teams to identify projects, specify requirements and provide ongoing critical feedback

Interested parties can fill out the project partners form.