Every year seniors in Ocean Engineering participate in Ship Design (AOE 4265-4266). Here is brief description of Ship Design at Virginia Tech:
"Study and application of systems engineering process to simultaneous development of ship requirements, concept exploration, selection of ship technologies, and selection of a baseline ship design. Emphasis is on hullform, machinery, ship synthesis and balance, metrics and design optimization in the context of a ship design project. Baseline design selected in the first semester is developed in the second semester. This includes hullform; topside arrangements; internal subdivision and tankage; power and propulsion; auxiliary machinery, general arrangements, machinery weights, space, seakeeping, cost, risk, and overall balance and feasibility."
Since 1998, Dr. Alan Brown has served as the faculty advisor for these projects.