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King's College London

Principles of Engineering

King's College London via FutureLearn

Overview

Develop your understanding of engineering design and the role of an engineer

This four-week course will develop your engineering skills and understanding for university study and work.

You’ll gain a thorough introduction to engineering principles, engineering design, and leading engineering technologies.

Learn about modern engineering technologies

This hands-on and practical course has a strong emphasis on the real work that engineers do every day. Through a combination of videos, articles, and mini-projects, you’ll explore the role of engineers in society, and look at the typical day in the life of an engineer.

As you explore key engineering technologies and challenges, you’ll consider the ways engineers think and communicate, and learn the value of soft skills like empathy and teamwork for working in engineering.

Learn engineering design and start problem-solving with engineering

Under the guidance of global experts, you’ll discover the latest in engineering design and technology.

You’ll demonstrate engineering design methodologies in practice, and learn how to define a problem, create a low-fidelity prototype, and undertake engineering problem-solving.

You’ll even have the chance to apply some of the design methodologies to your own engineering design.

Discover the best-known engineering processes across a range of engineering areas

This course is led by experts at The Faculty of Natural and Mathematical Sciences at King’s College London.

You’ll learn from internationally-renowned scientists and engineers about major engineering branches, including mechanical, material, and technological, as well as evolving areas like connectivity, networks and environmental engineering.

By the end of the course, you’ll know how to start to tackle engineering projects, as well as what soft skills you need to succeed as an engineer.

This course has been created for refugees, displaced people and the communities supporting them in the MENA (Middle East and Northern Africa) region who wish to study engineering at a university in English. It has been created as part of the PADILEIA project.

However, it will be useful for anyone who wants a taster of studying engineering at university, as well as anyone interested in how engineers think, approach problems, and follow projects from ideas to solutions.

Supported by UK aid - Strategic Partnerships for Higher Education, Innovation and Reform

Syllabus

  • Develop an eye for engineering
    • Welcome to Week 1
    • Let’s reflect on engineering
    • The branches of engineering
    • Hard and soft skills in engineering
    • Your own dream engineering project
    • What inspires engineers?
  • Design thinking
    • Welcome to Week 2
    • The world’s big challenges
    • Your turn to design: starting with user needs
    • Deciding what people need
    • Prototyping and testing
  • Mechanical engineering
    • Introducing mechanical engineering
    • Smart, nano and biomaterials
    • Biomedical soft robotics
    • Origami-like engineering
    • Drones and flying objects
    • Human-machine coexistence
  • Connectivity and networks
    • Welcome to Week 4
    • Switches, routers and networks
    • Cloud computing and data centres
    • Connecting people via cellular 2G to 6G
    • Connecting the Internet of Things
    • Exciting emerging technologies
    • Saying goodbye
    • Test yourself

Taught by

Mischa Dohler

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