This well-established and cutting-edge course will give you the skills and guidance you need to develop successful commercial products. You’ll be encouraged to take a creative and innovative approach to problem-solving, while also addressing the functional, social and economic needs of your design.
Your design skills will be developed with the support of dedicated, highly qualified and experienced academics, technicians and demonstrators. The course is equipped with excellent facilities including a specialist CAD laboratory and our manufacturing design centre.
During the course you'll learn how to manufacture physical models and prototypes, as well as produce industry standard computer models. Throughout the course you will learn to develop your creativity and innovation to solve design problems, and learn how to address the functional, social and economic needs of your design. 87% of our final year students agree our staff are good at explaining things – why not come and meet us?
You will spend your 3rd year on a work placement, gaining at least 30-weeks experience in a relevant industry. Following your placement year you will be able to choose between following either a BA (Hons) or the BSc (Hons) option, which focuses on the technological aspect of design. The BA (Hons) option focuses on the aesthetic and contextual issues relating to Product Design. We also offer an Integrated Master's award of Master of Design (MDes) Product Design.
Meet the Designers
BU's annual Design & Engineering Show is where our final year Design and Engineering students exhibit their prototypes and projects. View their projects online: www.bournemouth.ac.uk/festival
All statistics shown are taken from Unistats, Destination of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE), BU institutional data and Ipsos MORI (National Student Survey) unless otherwise stated.
Facilities
Location
Start date
Bournemouth
(Dorset)
Fern Barrow, Talbot Campus, BH12 5BB
Start date
On request
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Subjects
Staff
Credit
Statistics
Teaching
Design
Materials
Project
Industry
Engineering
Learning Teaching
Product Design
Visualisation
Course programme
Course details
On this course you will usually be taught by a range of staff with relevant expertise and knowledge appropriate to the content of the unit. This will include senior academic staff, qualified professional practitioners, demonstrators, technicians and research students. You will also benefit from regular guest lectures from industry.
Year 1
Core units
Design Projects & Prototypes 1: This covers a series of design projects for which you'll use your expertise from the other units of the programme. You'll design and make products that are attractive to the targeted market, backed with good scientific and design principles.
Materials & Processing: Learn about important properties of metals, plastics, ceramics and composites and why and how they're picked for product design. Energy and other environmental issues of materials and their processing are also covered.
Design Media: Present two and three dimension drawings, renderings and designs using manual and computer visualisation techniques. You'll learn how to professionally present your design media in an industrial situation.
Technological Principles: How basic scientific principles can help generate ideas and prove solutions. You'll learn about a range of mathematical, algebraic, physical and technological principles for developing solutions to design problems.
User-Centred Design: The psychology and physiology of your design users. By considering user capabilities and limitations, and likes and dislikes, you can make your designs more usable and pleasurable.
Year 2
Core units
Design Projects & Prototypes 2: You'll be encouraged to create more complex and innovative design solutions for functioning prototypes. Your projects will cover needs like functionality, human interaction, branding and design for manufacture.
Manufacturing & Production: You'll learn about modern manufacturing processes for competitive product development.
Visualisation Tools: Learn about applied 3-D modelling techniques to support your design visualisation, realisation and presentation. You'll learn to support your design process by using computer, physical modelling and presentation skills, and colour, texture and light using computer and manual techniques.
Management & Commercialisation for Technical Projects: An introduction to business and management. You'll learn to identify and use a company's strengths and evaluate opportunities for competitive products. There will be a focus on consumer marketing, decision making, intellectual property rights, product liability and financial and management accounting.
Applied Technology: The physical laws that govern product design and manufacture. You'll learn about a range of physical and technological principles for the design of components, structures, machines and products.
Year 3 (Placement)
You will complete a minimum 30-week industrial work placement which can be carried out anywhere in the world. You'll get an opportunity to include a period of academic study during this time. The placement year offers a chance to gain experience and make contacts for the future.
You'll choose a BA (Hons) or BSc (Hons) option during your placement year. The BSc option has more focus on the technological areas of design, while the BA option has more focus on the humanistic and contextual issues of product design.
Year 4
Core units
Design Projects 3: The most important part of the BA and BSc option, you'll design an individual project. You'll creatively solve product design issues and present a project report, and use scientific, analytical and technological principles to make functional design solutions.
Design Prototypes 3: This unit is linked to the Design projects 3 unit. You'll make functioning prototype that's an accurate representation of your individual design project.
Business Development: Covering the importance of strategic management in the business development process. You'll raise your entrepreneurial spirit and business decision-making. This will enhance your capacity to recognise and capitalise on competitive and innovative opportunities in a changing business environment.
Advanced Technology: Design products for structural integrity and reliability, and predict the performance and reliability of service products. You'll analyse, evaluate and select new and upcoming product materials and processing methods, and gain an understanding of the implications on global resources and the environment.
Scheduled learning and teaching activities
The hours below give an indication of how you can expect to spend your time during each year of this course. You will learn through a combination of lectures, seminars, tutorials, workshops and practical sessions. Your independent learning could include reading books and journal articles, working on group projects, preparing presentations, conducting library research and writing your assignments.
Students at all levels have a substantial amount of scheduled workshop activity allowing you access to the tools and machinery to build prototypes of your designs. Workshop time significantly increases in the final year to facilitate the build of fully functioning working prototypes of your final design project, a skill which is particularly attractive to potential employers.
Year 1 – 32% of your time will be spent in timetabled learning & teaching activities
Learning and teaching: 353 hours
Independent learning: 847 hours
Non-credit bearing learning and teaching: 28.5 hours
Year 2 – 26% of your time will be spent in timetabled learning & teaching activities
Learning and teaching: 291 hours
Independent learning: 909 hours
Non-credit bearing learning and teaching: 28 hours
Year 3 - placement year
Year 4 - 58% of your time will be spent in timetabled learning & teaching activities
Learning and teaching: 672.5 hours
Independent learning: 527.5 hours
Non-credit bearing learning and teaching: 60 hours
50% of the course is assessed by coursework
Year 1: 82%
Year 2: 68%
Year 3: 0%
Year 4: 48%
Throughout the course you will be assessed by coursework culminating in your final year research project, but you will also undertake group work and written exams.
Programme specification
Programme specifications provide definitive records of the University's taught degrees in line with Quality Assurance Agency requirements. Every taught course leading to a BU Award has a programme specification which describes its aims, structure, content and learning outcomes, plus the teaching, learning and assessment methods used.
Download the programme specification for BSc (Hons) Product Design.
Whilst every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the programme specification, the information is liable to change to take advantage of exciting new approaches to teaching and learning as well as developments in industry. If you have been unable to locate the programme specification for the course you are interested in, it will be available as soon as the latest version is ready. Alternatively please contact us for assistance.
All statistics shown are taken from Unistats, Destination of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE), BU institutional data and Ipsos MORI (National Student Survey) unless otherwise stated.
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