This is your chance to design and implement your own large-scale project of investigation, experimentation and analysis. Via a combination of meetings with your supervisor and delivered sessions on the areas you will need to function as a professional engineer, you will plan, design and implement your final project in an agreed area related to your course. Delivered sessions will assist you with project management, research techniques and allow you to evaluate the requirements for areas such as Health & Safety, ethics and your own personal development.

Your project will need to have practical and investigative elements, meaning you will have the opportunity to evaluate existing background, theories and knowledge as applied to a design problem or the development and improvement of new or existing processes and products. By using the wide-ranging skills, you have developed during your course you will be able to use practical measurement, design, implementation and above all, creativity, to devise and develop a solution based on sound engineering principles. It’s going to be an integrative project, that allows you to deploy, and extend, the range of skills and knowledge you have previously and concurrently developed in your chosen course.

This module will enable students to gain understanding, apply knowledge, analyse and evaluate problems and create solutions through a variety of activities, including;

- Taught sessions and guest lectures introducing project planning, management and areas of relevance to a professional engineer
- Individual and group tutorials
- Student Centred Learning to include laboratory work, research and report writing

American Society of Mechanical Engineers, (2015) Unwritten Laws of Ethics and Change in Engineering, American Society of Mechanical Engineers

Braungart, M. and McDonough, W., (2009) Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, Vintage, M. and McDonough, W., (2009) Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, Vintage

Leong, E. C., Heah, C. L. H., Ong, K. K. W., (2015) Guide to Research Projects for Engineering Students: Planning, Writing and Presenting, 1st Ed, CRC Press st Ed, CRC Press

Ridley, J., (2008) Health and Safety in Brief, 4th Ed, Routledge

Sharp, J. A., Peters, J., Howard, K., (2002) The Management of a Student Research Project, 3rd Ed, Routledge

Thompson, R. and Thompson, M., (2013) Sustainable Materials, Processes and Production (The Manufacturing Guides), Thames and Hudson Ltd

Practical Laboratory and Workshop Facilities
PC Laboratories and Engineering Software dependant on Student’s individual project requirements

1. Apply appropriate professional engineering techniques to a planned Engineering project (AHEP 3: EA4b, D2, EL3, EL5, P6, G2, G3b, G4)

2. Perform a Detailed Literature Survey suitable to underpin a subsequent research based project (AHEP 3: SM1b, P4, G4)

3. Process and Analyse complex sets of Results, often of incomplete data (AHEP 3: D3b, P3, P8, G1, G4)

4. Produce a major report conforming to a prescribed standard of referencing (AHEP 3: D6, G1, G4)

5. Present and Defend the Report and its findings to a critical audience (AHEP 3: D6, G1,G4)

Project Proposal 10% assessing LO1. Meeting AHEP 3 Outcomes EA4b, D2, EL3, EL5, P6, G2, G3b, G4

Project Journal 20% assessing LO1, LO2 and LO3. Meeting AHEP 3 Outcomes Sm1b, EA4b, D2, D3b, EL3, EL5, P3, P4, P6 P8, G1, G2, G3b, G4

Final Project Dissertation (9000 words) 60% assessing LO2, LO3 and LO4. Meeting AHEP 3 Outcomes SM1b, D3b, D6, P3, P4, P8, G1, G4.

Presentation and Interview 10% assessing LO5 (Final Assessment). Meeting AHEP 3 Outcomes D6, G1, G4.

Students will be supported by an appropriate supervisor and given on-going formative feedback as part of a mechanism to develop their project and the summative elements of assessment. Draft work will be reviewed during tutorials or electronically to guide the student in this process.

Information on how to undertake presentations will be provided in tutorial sessions and academic skills advisors will be available to guide and advise on how to undertake presentations