Second Year Coursework

The program of coursework in the second year includes about 20 experiments associated with the lecture courses and a variety of assignments in numerical analysis and computing. A number of the laboratory experiments are linked around the common theme of earthquake-resistant structures. Language courses in Chinese, French, German, Japanese and Spanish are again on offer.

A highlight of the second year is the Integrated Design Project. Over a 4-week period working in teams of 6, students design and build a mobile robot vehicle to be tested in a competition. Various tasks — typical of those faced by the automated guided vehicles frequently used in manufacturing plants — are set for each team. Each team member is responsible for a particular sub-system, e.g. structure and drive train, power supply, sensors, electronics, control or software integration.