Product Design Engineering

Craig Whittet Head of Department

A message from the PDE team

This is the time of year when emotions run high, deadlines have been met, exams are finished, 3D printers are no longer working away in the background and the cloud has a break from processing CAD files. It’s now time to celebrate the end of the beginning. PDE is a collaboration between the School of Design at the Glasgow School of Art, and the James Watt School of Engineering at the University of Glasgow - two distinctive educational cultures that are integral to the PDE experience. In most cases, the beginning of the students PDE experience starts with a short, sharp project on day 1 of Year 1. A chance to meet new friends, work collectively, design engineer, build and test. The building blocks for the next years of study and hopefully some fun along the way!

PDE projects always focus on how technology can improve the quality of life, celebrate diversity and embrace the opportunity to develop inclusive and responsible solutions to real world challenges. The contents, skills and methods that you see in this publication are not the result of one year of PDE studies. They are the accumulation of either four or five years of study and it’s a pleasure to share these projects with you.

During the final year, the students have been developing connections and networks that enable them to bridge the gap from academia to professional life. Several students have worked with industrial partners this year and the PDE team would like to thank them for their input and support. We are always looking to develop our range of external project partners; if you are interested, or know someone that would benefit from being involved with PDE, please let me know. Thanks also go to Autodesk for their continued support and partnership, their approach to democratising technology is highly valued by PDE.

Finally, the PDE team would like to wish the students all the very best, the beginning of the next stage in their PDE experience is imminent... keep in touch!