Innovation Project

In the third semester of the Bachelor's degree program in Mechanical Engineering, the students are going through an entire product development process from the very first idea right through to a fully functioning product; the Innovation Project. At the final contest of the Innovation Project, the students present their constructed systems and compete against each other.

The Innovation Project is a project-based engineering design course. Instead of acquiring knowledge about processes, construction, production and mechatronics merely theoretically, the students gain hands-on knowledge in a product development process of their own. Working in teams, the students have to master a complex development challenge, thereby learning not only to structure a given problem and generate and evaluate ideas but also about the importance of iteration cycles, prototyping and, not least, teamwork. The students conceive, design and manufacture a technical system, which they then test and operate. They thus experience the dependencies between design and production, the importance of testing and validation, and how to deal with limited resources firsthand. Throughout the process, the teams are supported by colleagues from more advanced semesters who are specifically trained in the coaching of design teams.