At the Branam Innovation Center (BIC) you’ll be able to practice innovation and bring your creations from concept to reality. This 16,200-square-foot open workspace is where teams huddle ahead of intense competitions, clubs unveil new innovations, and individual students tweak their latest projects. 

Every mechanical engineer needs to know “How’s that made?” and we bring everyone into the machine shop—beginning with EM103 Intro to Design freshman year, and again in their junior year for ME317 Design for Manufacturing. This is where you’ll learn about what you can do with saws, drills, lathes, and mills. We also have welding equipment and a plasma cutter, and offer a “Shop Badge Level I” opportunity for students who have very little experience and want to learn more in a small group (4 students/instructor). Then you’ll be ready to learn more on your own.

Our manufacturing lab contains most of our automated machine tools (Computer Aided Manufacturing, or CAM tools). One of our most popular electives is ME520 CAD/CAM uses this lab to teach students about the various tools--you can get one-on-one training on the machines, as well. A large bed foam router supports our competition teams’ needs in creating molds for composite shells, and laser cutters allow us to create “links” for the EM121 Statics Link competition (freshman year).

Get hands-on experience in our newly renovated Materials Lab. We use this lab for courses such as Materials Engineering and for course projects in ME Laboratory. It’s also used extensively for independent projects. Here, you can use digital microscopes to examine the effects of heating and quenching on the structure and strength of metals. Or use tensile testing equipment to find out just how much load that material can handle before it breaks, as well as machines to see how the material stands up to sudden impacts.