| Lecturer | Professor Rowan Truss |
| Course Link | UQ Site |
| Faculty | EAIT |
| Prerequisites | ENGG1010 or ENGG1400 + (ENGG1200 or MATE1000) |
| Contact Hours | 1 Practical or Laboratory hour, 1 Seminar hour |
| Semester(s) Taught | Semester 1 |
| Course Units | 2 |
42.7/100
The course material for this subject is interesting but all over the place. My suggestion would be to look at the questions on the final exams at the start of the semester and take note of what fits into where once the learning pathway is updated with all the topics. Then you'll know how to weed out all the unnecessary detail in the materials notes and structures lectures.
Keep up to date with all the tute questions and you'll scrape by.
Semester 1 - 2017
BEng/BSc
No, but it helps
Not at all
The course material is quite easy once you get the hang of it. The lecturers however were poorly set out and did not help learning the course material. I would recommend watching videos online at the start of the semester on the course material so you get the hang of material quickly or else you will fall behind.
Semester 1 - 2015
Mechanical Engineering
Yes
no
The course was poorly coordinated and the lecturers tried to teach too much too fast. The only lasting impression I have from this unsatisfying subject is that apart from the awkward hurdles you must leap over simply to pass, the content could have been interesting. If it had been taught properly, or at all. If you cannot self teach then you're very much out of luck, since that is how the materials content is served up. However, the resources to learn this content are very adequate - you need only the time to cram it. The tutorials and solutions were a good starting point and the textbook's questions and examples were also helpful if you knew what to look for and what to ignore. Personally, the self checks were vital because it showed me what I thought I knew but actually didn't.
Structures on the other hand was a complete mess across the board. There were not enough tutors in tutorials which made those hourly sessions inefficient, frustrating and useless since it would take you one minute to figure out that you have no idea how to solve the question, and then 15 minutes to get the attention of a tutor who would then guiltily say that someone else was waiting first. After 20 minutes of waiting a tutor may approach you, by which time they have no time to explain the question adequately and you left disgruntled and disappointed, not to mention bewildered at what on earth this "structures" is. As if that is not enough pain, there were no lecturer consults as with other subjects. These tutorials were your only chance to get your issues resolved and they themselves were more of a waste than a session for enlightenment. The textbook was satisfactory, however, it is first and foremost a book - one that could be used for a bunch of other things and thus for it to be useful you needed to know what to ignore. This might not be blatantly obvious to you considering that the structures lectures themselves were also nearly useless, since they were a solid 50 minutes of words and Greek symbols that you're supposed to understand but were just confused by.
The assessments also rain down on you like mother nature's tears as she weeps for you because you picked your structures prac and materials pracs in the same week, which meant that you had two reports due at the same time. You also needed the odds forever in your favor with this subject since the dreaded integrated assignment was issued during the period where you stressed about your final structures quiz. Although it could be assumed by the very word "practical" that paperwork was in order, sign ons are a battle field and even if you knew about this predicament, there were always some unfortunate souls who missed their preferred sessions and had no choice.
I personally would not say my time management skills are lacking and I had two other easy subjects for my dual degree but still, this subject managed to make all the others suffer due to ridiculous sleep deprivation, mental breakdowns and mini heart-attacks that nearly sent me to cardiac every week. Through the whole semester the lecturers emphasized the need to "keep up". Now, having passed this course I would say that this is a gross understatement and you need to set world records for land speed to achieve this elusive 7.
Semester 1 - 2015
Mechanical Engineering
Depends
Depends
The organisation of this course was shockingly bad. There were a number of serious issues with the course administration including repeated blackboard errors, miscommunication of due dates, deviation from the ECP, late release of assessment details and even an attempt to set an assessment item as due at the very end of swotvac.
The materials lectures were very disappointing, there was little structure and and a lot of the content wasn't covered at all. It was up to students to teach themselves pretty much all of the content on their own. It would benefit students if the lecturer focused on providing a structured, comprehensive set of lectures rather than the current approach which involves throwing together lecture slides literally the day before in response to a weekly student survey.
Structures lectures were well thought out and comprehensive.
Semester 1 - 2014
BEng
I am torn between enjoying this course or frustratingly thinking that this course should be rewritten from scratch. The course is split in two. Half materials and half structures of which half the course did stuff right and the other vice versa. Materials taught by Rowan Truss was organised with a combination of experiments, tutorials and lectures each week. However the content of this half is shocking. Everything taught for materials could be read straight from a textbook read from start till finish which raises the question what I am paying for as a student.
Its not all bad though. The structures part of the course taught by Michael Smart was the exact opposite of materials. Taught well with lectures and tutes but lacked structure and assessment during the semester. The assessment for the structures part of the course was one group prac report and 24 MCQ's split into two quizzes.
Then for the final report which supposedly assessed the knowledge of what was taught over the semester was a complete joke. The assessment was so vague and required hundreds of questions by students to gain closure on what was being asked throughout the semester. Not something you want to have to spend 4 weeks on waiting for a tutor or lecturer to reply to a question which shouldn't have needed to be asked in the first place.
Tl;dr Until the (ironically) material of materials half and the structure of structures half is improved in this course, I would recommend teaching yourself the content by textbook.
Semester 1 - 2014
Bachelor of Engineering
Materials:
I was very unclear that this was a self taught part of the course. While that in itself isn't a problem the fact that we are given essentially half a text book to study makes it very difficult to know what to focus on. Quiz questions felt like they were just random facts that if we happened to have memorised we would get correct.
There was sooo many things due all the time it was very hard to keep track. Either have weekly assessment or create a timetable in advance stating when everything was due. Blackboard was VERY disorgainsed.
Structures:
I respect Smart and understand why he approaches the content in the way he does. He derives the formulas in class and gives examples. I feel the derivation is unnecessary and confusing. It's something that would only be useful once one was VERY familiar with the content (the math) and where it was all going. I liked the use of worked examples in class that was great. The structures tutorials were great, I find I learn best when taught not from a lecturer but from someone of a similar age who has done this recently. They often understand where our confusions arise and are able to explain it.
Semester 1 - 2014
Bachelor of Engineering
I thought ENGG1100 was poorly organised but I think I've finally done a course which was much worse. Assessments were released late, causing the final week of semester to be absolutely chaotic. On the last Friday of semester, we had 3 assessments due for the same course, when according to the course structure, we should of only had 1. We were also never told, until the week before we had a lecture about it, that we had a group risk assessment project which we had one week to complete. There were surprises around every corner, and that is what made this course memorable-and that's not in a good way. I respect the lecturers however, I just wish they were more organised. The course would have been a lot more smooth sailing.
Semester 1 - 2014
I think Smart summarized the teaching standards in this course when midway during a lecture on pressure cylinders he said: "Let me just check the text book to make sure what I'm teaching you is actually correct".
Semester 1 - 2014
Mechanical Engineering