Using Generative AI in Senior Design? Follow These 7 Rules

AI can speed up exploration, code and documentation. Your team still owns every engineering decision and result.

1. Explore, Don't Outsource

Ask AI for design alternatives, then compare them against requirements, constraints, risks and trade-offs before choosing.

2. Verify Equations and Units

Re-derive critical steps, check dimensions, inspect assumptions and test boundary cases. A confident AI answer can still be wrong.

3. Test Every Line of Code

Run unit tests, compare with a baseline, inspect edge cases and reproduce the output. Working once is not validation.

4. Check Specs and Standards

Verify components, ratings, tolerances and safety rules in official datasheets and applicable standards—not an AI summary.

5. Keep an AI Decision Log

Record prompts, useful outputs, rejected suggestions, human edits, tests and final decisions so your process remains explainable.

6. Protect Project Data

Follow your university's policy. Do not upload confidential research, sponsor data, personal information or restricted designs without permission.

7. Defend the Trade-offs

Be ready to explain why the design works, how you tested it, where it can fail and why you rejected the alternatives.

AI Assists. Engineers Decide.

ABET's 2026–27 criteria still center design, standards, constraints, experimentation, communication, ethics and engineering judgment.