The mission of the O. T. Swanson Multidisciplinary Design Laboratory (THE DESIGN LAB) is to provide a clinical real world experience for students, one that builds confidence and allows them to integrate discipline- specific knowledge with practice on challenging multidisciplinary design projects.

Why THE DESIGN LAB?

Fresh thinking. Practical solutions. An innovation pipeline. Industry leaders such as General Motors, GE, and Lockheed Martin have reaped these benefits from the Design Lab. They have identified viable solutions to some of their most important challenges—and, in the process, strengthened their internal engineering resources by working closely with one of the world’s top engineering schools.

Practical solutions.

As company mentors work closely with Rensselaer seniors on their project, they get the focused attention of some of the country’s brightest and most enthusiastic engineering students. In the process, students gain exposure to the realities of the business world—and sponsors gain the opportunity to turn fresh ideas in practical realities.

An innovation pipeline.

This process provides companies with an ideal point of entry to an ongoing relationship, not just with THE DESIGN LAB, but with Rensselaer as a whole. As part of that relationship, companies gain access to a wealth of critical resources: world-class faculty, advanced centers for multidisciplinary problem solving, state-of-the-art facilities—and a continual flow of potential employees in the form of engineering graduates. This innovation pipeline can make a considerable impact on a company’s bottom line by providing new perspectives to take on mission-critical issues.