DES470 INDUSTRIAL DESIGN THESIS is a year-long capstone project providing students with the opportunity to develop a specific focus within design. In the fourth year of the BDes program, studio courses take two distinct paths to applying acquired knowledge: personal and professional. In the first semester, students conduct extensive research and identify a self-generated complex design problem. Students perform a thorough design investigation through a personal lens, gaining an understanding of the variety of areas of practice within the discipline. They produce professional quality functional and/or aesthetic prototypes of the final design and are guided to present their ideas effectively through verbal and visual arguments. Students document their design process for professional portfolio, collectively evaluate the success of their final projects, and exhibit thesis results in the Year End Show.