Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
During the last 10 years our university has also clearly been in favour of teach-
ers, researchers and students becoming involved in setting up companies based on
technological developments or spin-offs from the results produced in the frame-
work of the university. To this end, the university has implemented its Company
Creation “Actúa-UPM” fl agship programme (actuaupm.blogspot.com).
This holds an annual competition with over 30,000 euros in prize money, where
some 250 business ideas are presented, that usually ends up with 10-15 technology-
based companies being set up. Students with outstanding achievements taking our
subject are encouraged to take part in these initiatives, possibly in parallel with their
fi nal master's project or at the start of their doctoral thesis. In this way, students also
learn to make a more direct link between the concepts of “knowledge generation”-
“intellectual property”-“competitive edge”, which they will then always be able to
apply in their industrial practice.
18.4
Results From Our Experience
During the 2010-2011 course, 12 students from different degrees and with a varied
range of professional experience took part in the subject. There were students from
various engineering degrees and students from further degrees and several years'
experience. Because of the need to adapt to the level of the students and prepare
additional exercises, teachers might see a multidisciplinary background as a prob-
lem. However, we are not of that opinion. Instead it should be seen as an opportunity
to enrich the course with a larger number of opinions as a way of contributing to the
continuous improvement of teaching quality and as a stimulus to update and opti-
mise course content.
A major benefi t that helps minimise the impact of the different student back-
grounds is the situation of the subject in the second 4-month period and the fact that
in the fi rst 4-month period students take “Computer-Aided Mechanical Engineering”.
In this subject all the students have learned the basics about different design
modules, simulation and computer-aided manufacturing (CAD-CAE-CAM
technologies), using the NX-7.5 package (Siemens PLM Solutions), although there
are other very similar packages. So when students begin “Bioengineering”, they
have the necessary skills (they are at least able to use the software) to confront the
set application task.
In addition, the fact that they are using the tools learned in the previous subject
of “Computer-Aided Mechanical Engineering” for the “Bioengineering” develop-
ment task also reminds them of the previously learned concepts and helps consoli-
date them. It is worth pointing out that 5 students of a total of 12 said they wanted
to continue by doing the fi nal project of their master's course on product or biode-
vice development so they could combine what was learned in both subjects.
Illustrated below, in Fig.
18.4
, are some examples of the application tasks set in
the fi rst teaching experience in the subject, which help students to understand the
benefi ts of starting off from the conceptual designs described in the different patents.
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