Recently, the Mechanical Engineering Experimental Teaching Centre and Hefeng-Nottingham Innovative Design Station in the Department of Mechanical, Materials and Manufacturing Engineering were selected for the Provincial 14th Five Year Plan Construction of Key Experimental Teaching Centre and Off-campus Practical Education Base respectively.

The Mechanical Engineering Experimental Teaching Centre is equipped with a full range of general experimental equipment , cutting-edge 3D printers and laser processing instruments. It supports the teaching of all the laboratory sessions for BEng (Hons) Mechanical Engineering and BEng (Hons) Product Design and Manufacture programmes and students’ design projects. The Materials Testing Lab, Engineering Workshop and Beam Bending and Dynamics Lab are also used for the teaching of the Civil Engineering and Aerospace Engineering programmes.

The Department of Mechanical, Materials and Manufacturing Engineering focuses on developing students' research innovation and hands-on skills. In their Year 2 and Year 3 study, Mechanical Engineering students work in groups to design and manufacture a mechanical device, such as an amphibious vehicle. In this way, students find ways to integrate the theoretical knowledge they learn in class and put it into practice.

Outside of class, the Mechanical Engineering Experimental Teaching Centre also acts as a platform for student innovation. It is open to all science and engineering students. In the summer of 2022, a group of eight students majoring in Mechanical Engineering and Electrical and Electronic Engineering finished a summer research project here. They designed and manufactured a desktop-level industrial robot system for assembly line sorting, which can automatically recognise the position of the objects with the help of visual systems, and then the robot arm can perform the work of automatic grasping, handling and installation.

This project involved many fields, including mechanical structures, automatic controls, space geometry, artificial intelligence and many more. Mr John Zhu, the project supervisor, told us that “it is really good to have a place with all these talented students working together and creating some great research. They can also learn from each other.”

Dr Hao Chen, Associate Professor and Director of the Teaching Centre illuminated that it is important to balance classroom lectures with hands-on practical experience in workshops and labs and enhance student’s problem-solving capabilities. In the construction period, the Teaching Centre will invite experts from related areas to give lectures and workshops to FoSE students and staff to improve inter-disciplinary research innovation and build first-class disciplines.

Hefeng-Nottingham Innovative Design Station was jointly established by UNNC and Hefeng Creative Industrial Park in 2017. Professor Xu Sun is the main leader of the station. Its purpose is to create a space for the application and development of innovation at the three levels of product, design and technology, as well as to promote the development of Ningbo's multi-industry innovation abilities.

As a testing field for industry-education integration, the station has trained a number of high-level professional talents who have participated in several national scientific research projects, obtained more than 20 patents, and won over 30 international design awards. Professor Sun said, "The base has always played the role of a 'foothold' for design training activities in UNNC industrial design courses, so that students have the opportunity to apply their theoretical knowledge to the real world. It is this teaching style of applying theoretical knowledge to practice that allows UNNC students to reach their full potential."

In addition, the base actively coordinates with companies in various industries and promotes project cooperation with well-known enterprises at home and abroad, such as Boeing, Jaguar Land Rover, Geely, and Joyson.

In terms of future planning and prospects, Professor Sun said that the university will draw inspiration from the “FAB lab” concept in “The Center for Bits and Atoms” at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States, and will develop the base into the first intelligent manufacturing innovation design industry-education integration practice base in Ningbo that has obtained FAB lab international accreditation.

BEng (Hons) Mechanical Engineering and BEng (Hons) Product Design and Manufacture programmes are accredited by the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and the Institution of Engineering Designers (iED). Last year, UNNC Mechanical Engineering was listed in the 2022 Global Shanghai Ranking of Academic Subjects for the first time. The Department of Mechanical, Materials and Manufacturing Engineering will further support the Faculty’s advancement in the research and education.