HIGHER EDUCATION
“They can choose virtually any direction
that they want to go in,” points out
Radulovic. An extra fourth-year integrated
masters add-on includes modules on
advanced surface science and structural
bioengineering.
Just as the course challenges
students, it also makes novel demands
of the faculty. Radulovic adds: “From
my experience, I could be teaching
mechanics to 200 students, or, in
innovation engineering, work with 20. It’s
a completely different way of co-producing
teaching with students.”
Housing and supporting this activity
is a special-purpose space, technically a
wing of another campus building: that is
the FTC. “We wanted students to have
exposure to state-of-the-art technology.
And when they work in teams, to have
access to numerous university and other
resources. They could run a simulation,
access the library, or pool their resources
for designing a device. It’s important that
is in a space that facilitates teamwork.”
The ground oor consists of a
laboratory space with equipment specially
chosen not to replicate what already
exists on the campus. So it houses a
multi-material 3D printer, at the time one
of the rst in the UK, and a metal 3D
The FTC’s campus elevation
printer using a sintering process. As these
machines produce novel materials, the
lab also houses material characterisation
tools including micro computed
tomography (CT) scanners to evaluate
those structures.
The rst and second oors house
teaching spaces. They are not lecture
halls, but furniture and equipment
designed to facilitate collaborative work:
tables with monitors and connections for a
variety of devices, from phones to laptops.
A/V equipment enables students to share
their work visually with others on that oor,
or elsewhere. There are social spaces with
sofas where students can meet informally.
The third oor offers a computing lab,
with workstations powerful enough to run
simulations relatively quickly.
The fourth oor is a space that was
designed through a cooperation between
the university and the Solent Local
Enterprise Partnership (LEP), a consortium
of local businesses, to allow them
access to FTC equipment – and students.
Radulovic describes it as a hub, where
businesses can have meetings and do
consultancy and even CPD.
She concludes: “Multidisciplinary
teaching is not new. But this course
is a true hybrid. It is not trying to cram
everything from all branches of engineering
into one. On the contrary, we are selecting
the most valuable elements, skills and
knowledge of several disciplines in a
comprehensive way.”
Each storey of the
FTC offers different
resources
www.ied.org.uk 21
/www.ied.org.uk