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Apply mechanical engineering knowledge to industry-inspired projects

Projects are a core part of our undergraduate degrees. You'll work in teams and individually to develop your skills and use what you learn practically.

Project and laboratory experiment structure

Our project work aims to balance what you've learnt with practical work.

During your first two years you'll learn about:

  • workshop practice
  • experimental methods
  • data analysis
  • prototype build of design projects
  • common engineering machines

In your third year, you'll put your knowledge into practice. The second semester is dedicated to an industry-sponsored group business and design project. This helps you develop your technical, design, teamwork, financial planning, management and marketing skills.

The second semester of your final year of study is devoted to an individual project, where you can focus on a specialist topic. You can choose a subject you find interesting, industry-sponsored research associated with your placement year, or an engineering project based on research our postgraduates and academics are doing.

Because projects are central to your degree, we celebrate the culmination of your hard work in an annual Design and Project Exhibition. This is a chance for you to showcase your portfolio to industry guests, your peer group, and the department.

Creating meaningful and purposeful products

For Nia's final-year mechanical engineering project, she was given the brief to improve the white cane. Nia's digital cane uses ultrasonic waves to identify obstacles and communicates these to a visually impaired user through vibrations. After her graduation, Nia was supported by the University of Bath's Innovation Centre to turn her idea into a business.

Compact Cane: from project to market - Nia's story from University of Bath on Vimeo.

Design and project exhibition

At our annual design and project exhibition our students showcase their individual and group project work to industry, academics, friends and family.

Typical projects

You'll get to experience designing, developing and constructing a product.

During your degree, you'll work on:

  • a spring-propelled dragster design project
  • a design and build project
  • engineering laboratory investigations
  • modelling and simulation computer projects
  • a group business and design project
  • an individual project

You could join one of our student competition teams such as Team Bath Racing (TBR), Bath Zero motorcycle racing team or Team Bath Drones. Your team will design and build a product to compete against other student teams in the UK and worldwide. As a team member, you can take on roles as varied as public engagement or brand development.

For their individual and group projects, some of our current and past students have worked on:

Competing with Team Bath Drones

For his final-year project, Aerospace Engineering student, Hemant Chudasama is investigating the flying wing of Team Bath Drones' Unmanned Aircraft System.

Read Hemant's story
Hemant smiles as he looks at the wing of a drone.

Competing with Bath Zero

Nadia Domanski's experience of project managing the build of an electric superbike improved her confidence and helped her secure a graduate job.

Read Nadia's story
Nadia smiles as she tinkers with an electric motorcycle

Facilities to support your project work

We design our labs and workshops to be similar to industrial workspaces, offering you an insight into the way professionals work.

You'll work on your individual and group projects using departmental studios, a well-equipped model shop and laboratory teaching labs. You'll also have access to our modern research facilities, which are fitted with the latest technology. This is similar to the equipment you could use in industry when you graduate.

A tour of our mechanical engineering labs

Our students take us on a tour of the mechanical engineering labs and facilities for undergraduate students.

4 East Mechanical Engineering undergraduate labs tour from University of Bath on Vimeo.

Undergraduate mechanical engineering courses

Browse our courses

Please note that project briefs continuously change as we try to link these to current scenarios taking place in the industry. The project work experiences listed here, as well as access to facilities and equipment, are dependent on the health and safety circumstances of any given year and refurbishment/upgrade works that may need to be carried out.