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New first-time student engineering labs opened at School

17 November 2021

New Education Labs have been setup on Lambeth Wing Level 4 of St Thomas' Hospital for our School's students, equipped with key equipment needed to conduct in-class experiments, allowing students to learn how to use key pieces of engineering equipment under the guidance of lecturers.

Professor Kawal Rhode, Head of Education said the new teaching laboratory for electrical, electronic and mechatronics engineering is an exciting new facility at St Thomas' Hospital.

It will allow our undergraduate and postgraduate students on the Biomedical Engineering, Healthcare Technologies and Clinical Sciences programs to develop their engineering skills in the environment of a busy teaching hospital and in the elite healthcare research environment of our School. – Professor Kawal Rhode

Third year biomedical engineering student Motla Ramasia said having access to the new labs is key to ensuring a more special educational experience for a practical discipline such as biomedical engineering.

I think for any student just post-pandemic and post having to be home all the time, we are very privileged to be able to be back together in such a prestigious lab and being able to work together, help each other out, have teachers and most importantly just have face-to-face interaction with our lecturers.– Motla Ramasia, undergraduate student

Ms Ramasia said using the labs has given her more confidence in how to approach the year and her studies.

"Using the labs has given me more confidence in how to approach this year and just how I’ll approach the workspace in general in engineering. It’s very hands-on with equipment and technology so to be able to be here and have that experience before going to the workplace is great.”

Professor Rhode said this makerspace allows the School’s students to learn via project-based learning which is a wonderful way of encouraging them to develop ideas and translate them into a physical reality.

The lab features soldering stations, power supplies, function generators, oscilloscopes, mechatronics components and a range of 3D printers and more.

Undergraduate student Michael Dubiner said having access to the labs opens more opportunities to see what it would be like to work in robotics as there is more hands-on practical experiences in the labs.

Jingyi Liu, who is also an undergraduate student said: “I think the lab opens up opportunities for us to engage with machines and it’s engaging us more. I was surprised by the wide range of equipment we can use. The lab just gives us opportunities to explore beyond the slides.”

Student Ginnie Akkaneevanich said: "Without access to a lab everything would be so abstract. When we have access to the lab, we can feel the technology physically and we can be more impressionable."

This is truly exciting news. The engineering labs in St Thomas’ Hospital will become a new home for hundreds of students in the School, for years to come providing advanced skills and inspiration to future generations of biomedical engineers.– Dr Oleg Aslanidi, Course Director of Biomedical Engineering BEng/MEn