Design Day Awards
On Design Day, the computer science capstone teams compete for four prestigious awards.
The award winning teams and projects are chosen by a distinguished panel of judges who meet with the teams at their displays on the 3rd floor of the Engineering Building throughout the morning.
Visitors are welcome to attend.
CSE 498 capstone teams present their projects on Design Day in a variety of ways. Teams create and set up an exhibit where they demonstrate their projects and answer questions from Design Day attendees, which include corporate clients, families, friends, faculty, and students, along with hundreds of local middle and high school students. In addition, as part of the award competition, teams present their projects to a panel of judges.
The CSE capstone team with the best overall Design Day performance is honored with the
One of the hallmarks of CSE 498 capstone projects is that of praxis, the process of putting theoretical knowledge into practice. Teams apply a wide variety of information technologies to produce solutions to complex problems in areas such as business, engineering, computing, and science.
The CSE capstone team that engineers the best software system that is the most technically challenging is recognized with the
Each CSE 498 capstone team produces a video that describes and demonstrates their software product. Starting with a storyboard and a script, teams use Camtasia Studio to synthesize screen recordings, video, audio and other multimedia to produce their project videos.
And the TechSmith Screencast Award goes to...the CSE capstone team with the best project video. The award is sponsored by the creators of Camtasia Studio, TechSmith of Okemos, Michigan.
The CSE 498 experience represents the capstone of the educational career of each computer science major. An intense semester of teamwork produces impressive deliverables that include a formal project plan, formal presentations, software, documentation, a video, and Design Day participation. The resulting sum, the Capstone Experience, is much greater than the parts.
The capstone team that delivers the best overall capstone experience is recognized with the
Design Day Panel of Judges
For the judges from the previous Design Day, see the Design Day Panel of Judges, Fall 2025.
The panel of judges for spring 2026 includes the following people as well as “players to be named later.”
- Conner Bean
Senior Engineer / Technical Lead
Stripe
San Francisco, California - Shwet Bhasin
Chief Information Officer
WK Kellogg Co
Battle Creek, Michigan - Pratap Chanamolu
Senior Manager, Software Engineering
Urban science
Detroit, Michigan - Tony Dean
President and Chief Information Officer
Auto-Owners Insurance
Lansing, Michigan - Bob Dyksen
Principal Product Education Engineering
Harness
San Francisco, California - E.J. Dyksen
Director
PwC
Grand Rapids, Michigan - Rick Grubb
Director of Applications and Innovation
General Dynamics Land Systems
Sterling Heights, Michigan - Thomas Hojnicki
Computer Vision Developer
Lockheed Martin Space
Littleton, Colorado - Ryan Johnson
Head of Engineering
Faktor Sports
East Lansing, Michigan - Samantha Kissel
Senior Software Engineer
Nexxa.ai
Sunnyvale, California
- Tony Lambert
Chief Technical Officer
TechSmith
Okemos, Michigan - Dan Lemont
Chief Information Officer - Data & AI
Ally
Detroit, Michigan - John Marx
Senior Software Development Manager
Amazon
Detroit, Michigan - Ben Maxim
Chief Innovation Officer
MSU Federal Credit Union
East Lansing, Michigan - Rob McCurdy
Deputy Chief Technology Officer
PwC
Grand Rapids, Michigan - Spencer Ottarson
Software Engineer
Google
Mountain View, California - Brad Ross
Senior Vice President and Chief Product Officer
Delta Dental of Michigan
Okemos, Michigan - Betsy Sneller
Assistant Professor of Linguistics
Michigan State University
East Lansing, Michigan - Ben St. John
Chief Technical Officer
Ludus
Holland, Michigan - Kristen Williams
Vice President, Chief Technical Officer
Meijer
Grand Rapids, Michigan
