BEng Mechatronic Engineering with Industrial Experience / Course details

Switch on your career in mechatronic engineering at Manchester, a university with a prestigious engineering history - and a bright focus on the future. Mechatronics, the marriage of mechanical engineering with smart electronics, is vital to subjects including industrial automation and robotics.

To interact with an object, a mechatronic system must know where the object is, be able to move the object and place it in the required new position. The electronics require information from sensors that can detect position, orientation, and visual or audio signals. The electrical inputs from the sensors have to be interpreted and the appropriate signals sent out to the actuators to perform the required operation.

A good understanding of feedback control is also required to make changes in the system from one steady position to another, without oscillations or unpredictable movements. In this course you will learn the techniques necessary for the design and implementation of such intelligent mechatronic systems.

Spending a year in industry will not only develop your business, team working and transferable skills - all highly sought-after by employers - it will also highlight the broad range of careers on offer to you and guide your choice of subject options. You'll place yourself in a great position to move your career forward. 

• You will learn robotics, mechatronics, and autonomous system technology and how to incorporate an electronics nervous system into other engineering systems and devices.
• We will provide ample opportunity for practical application and project work. These are strong themes throughout our course.
• You will be taught by academics working on the cutting-edge of research, helping to solve the world's biggest challenges.
• You will gain first-hand industrial experience at a recognised company, acquiring the knowledge and skills to take your learning to the next level.

Paid industrial placement opportunity

The paid industrial placement will increase your depth and breadth of mechatronics engineering knowledge, and provide valuable practical work experience strengthening your expertise and your CV.

Regular, close support

In addition to regularly meeting your academic advisor, you will also enjoy a close relationship with your project tutor, meeting on a weekly basis to supplement your learning in lectures and lab sessions.

Excellent facilities

With access to an extensive range of leading facilities , you will get hands-on with industry-standard equipment - improving your knowledge and skills, and preparing you for work post-graduation. Our flagship facilities include a new High Voltage Lab , Photon Science Institute , and the brand new teaching and research engineering  buildings .

Options and flexibility

The first three semesters of our undergraduate courses share the same fundamental engineering contents. This gives you the opportunity to transfer between electrical and electronic, electronic and mechatronic engineering up until halfway through your second year. The third year syllabus is flexible to suit your specialism interests.

In your first year of study there is approximately a 50:50 split between your contact time and independent study; about the same as when studying for A-levels.

In subsequent years this split changes to a greater amount of independent learning, with the split being approximately 30:70 in the third year. This does not mean that less help is available; our staff are here to help.

Contact time could be in a lecture, example class, tutorial, laboratory class and sometimes may be online (email/e-learning/web blog etc). All of these activities enable you to interact with us to ensure you have the best possible learning experience.

The course contains strong practical elements: a year-long practical build project of an electronic device in Year 1, a year-long practical build project of an autonomous embedded system in Year 2, and a year-long practical research project in Year 3.

During your year in industry, an academic supervisor will ensure that your activity is strongly related with your degree and you will have the opportunity to spend a year working on engineering projects in an industrial setting. 

Assessment of most course units is by examination combined with an element of course work, such as marked laboratory work or marked examples. Substantial projects are assessed by written reports, presentations and demonstrations.

Find out what it's like to study at Manchester by visiting the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering blog .

Our strong, ever-growing links with industry not only help to inform our courses, but also boost our excellent teaching and research facilities. These include:

• National Instruments Undergraduate Teaching Laboratory
• High Voltage Lab
• Manchester Engineering Campus
• Rolls-Royce University Technology Centre
• Oxford Instruments VG Semicon Molecular Beam Epitaxy facility
• National Graphene Institute
• Dalton Nuclear Institute

The University of Manchester also offers extensive library and online services , helping you get the most out of your studies.