I joined Team Bath Biodevices almost by chance. I was in my first year, still finding my footing at university, when I heard about this ambitious project using lab-on-a-chip technology to test drinking water safety. The idea immediately resonated with me. There was a team working on something that could genuinely make a difference, something whose impact extended far beyond campus. I knew straight away I wanted to be part of it.
The challenge before us was deceptively simple: to create a low-cost, portable device capable of assessing water potability by measuring nitrate levels, pH, turbidity and other key indicators. Yet the potential impact was powerful, especially in regions like sub-Saharan Africa where quick, affordable testing could make a real difference to communities reliant on untreated water sources. I remember feeling both excited and humbled by the scale of the project.
Stepping into an interdisciplinary team
When I joined, the project was already a year underway, with academic leads, a PhD student, with a diverse group of undergraduates and master’s students all contributing their expertise. What struck me from the start was just how many different disciplines were involved. Engineering students were designing circuitry and 3D-printed casings. Computer Science students were experimenting with data-handling software. Meanwhile, others were organising fundraising and logistics for an upcoming trip to South Africa, where the prototype would be tested on-site with Stellenbosch University.
Despite being new to the team, I soon found myself stepping into the role of technical director. It was my first time leading a team of this scale, and suddenly I was helping to coordinate more than twenty students. We built an Agile structure around weekly meetings, task planning, and shared goals. It felt, in the best way, like stepping into a real-world tech organisation, but one powered entirely by students with different skills and motivations. As I settled in, I proposed we develop a mobile app that could connect to the device via Bluetooth and allow users to export measurement data and metadata. To demonstrate the idea, I built a small prototype in React Native. That prototype became the foundation for the app used in the South Africa testing trip. Seeing that come to life remains one of the most rewarding technical moments of my degree.
Bringing an idea to life
One of the most fulfilling parts of being on the team was witnessing the progression from abstract ideas to something tangible. When I first joined, the device was still firmly at the conceptual stage. But as the months went by, sketches became 3D-printed shells, rough circuits became functioning electronics, and lines of code transformed into a user-friendly interface. Having never worked closely with mechanical or electrical engineers before, I found it deeply inspiring to watch their designs materialise.
With everyone moving together, engineers refining designs, Computer Science students integrating software, and the logistics team preparing for international field-testing, the progress felt both fast and meaningful. By the end of the year, we had a fully functioning prototype and an app ready to travel to South Africa. Fundraising and collaboration plans were in place, and the project felt like a testament to what a motivated student team could achieve in such a short time.
Learning what it means to lead and collaborate
Being technical director was as much a personal learning experience as it was a technical one. I’d never led such a large, multidisciplinary group before. Keeping up with everyone’s work, understanding enough of each discipline to guide conversations, and making sure everyone received credit for their contributions were responsibilities I had never managed at that scale. It pushed me to become more organised, more communicative, and more aware of what effective leadership truly looks like.
At the same time, the collaborative atmosphere was what made the experience so memorable. Working with so many creative, dedicated people, each bringing their own expertise, broadened my horizons and reminded me how vast the world of engineering and research really is. The project also gave me practical experience that fed directly into later opportunities, from internships to academic group work. It became something I talked about frequently in interviews, not to sound impressive, but because it genuinely shaped my thinking and approach to work.
This experience didn’t stay confined to the project, either. When I later applied for and completed internships at Amazon, AWS and Meta, I found myself constantly drawing on the skills I’d developed in Team Bath Biodevices. Whether I was building voice-responsive animations for the Amazon app in London, developing internal tooling for AWS Redshift in Berlin or creating an AI system to improve monitoring quality at Meta, I drew heavily on the foundations I’d built within this team. The leadership, adaptability and collaborative working style I developed during the project helped me approach unfamiliar challenges with confidence, and I often found myself reflecting on how much this student team had prepared me for professional environments.
Why this team will stay with me
Looking back now, what stands out most isn’t just the technical accomplishments or the prototype we built, but how profoundly the project changed my understanding of what students can achieve when they’re trusted with real problems. Team Bath Biodevices gave me a community, a chance to contribute something meaningful, and experiences that influenced the rest of my degree and even played a part in helping me secure future roles.
I often encourage other students to explore the Vertically Integrated Projects at Bath, because you never know what doors they might open up for you. I joined the team expecting to help out on a small part of an engineering challenge. Instead, I found myself in the middle of a project that expanded my skills, my confidence, and my sense of what I could contribute to the world.