Dr Xianhui Che and Dr Ling Ma
The Joint Programme between the Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) and Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT) has been running successfully since 2004. Approximately 680 students complete their undergraduate final year projects every year. A final year project involves substantial engineering work in the field of electronic engineering and computer science. It is one of the most important outcomes to demonstrate their achievements.
During the project process, students gain experience in managing their own time to complete a project. They also develop a professional approach in presenting their project work including communication skills, both written and oral, to a standard expected by the industry. This is particularly important as all students from the joint programme are expected to be internationally competitive, taking advantage of the teaching excellence from both QMUL and BUPT.
Over the last three years, we have been taking the challenges into opportunities to transform the traditional viva into an online/hybrid mode. Our technical solution enabled us to collect over 1000 hours of video recordings from the final viva. The above 2-minute showreel is the highlight of our extensive repository of excellent projects.
The showreel gives a visual indication of our students’ work. While only a handful of student work could be included in the sample, it does offer an insightful demonstration of their competencies and interests in the electronic engineering and computer science discipline.
As seen from the showreel, there is a wide diversity of project topics and types. Students have learned to use their knowledge and understanding of scientific principles and methodology necessary to apply an integrated or systematic approach to solve engineering problems. A large variety of application contexts has been showcased, which demonstrates students’ understanding of relevant historical, current and future developments and technologies. Examples of specialised areas in the final year project topics include but are not limited to Telecommunications, Internet of Things, Multimedia, Computer Vision, Software Development, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics.