ABSTRACT
The cornerstone of post-graduate naval architecture and marine engineering education at UCL is the Ship Design Exercise. This three-month full-time project sees students placed in small, multidisciplinary teams and challenged with the concept design of a new vessel based on broad outline requirements provided by the academic staff. This exercise exemplifies the use of design as an integrative teaching method, allowing engineering students to place their academic understanding of technical subjects in a whole-ship concept. This paper describes an innovative design – HYDRA – featuring a single core vessel capable of adaption during build to take on several military or civilian roles. This paper not only describes the technical aspects of the design solution itself, but also discusses the educational implications of setting students the challenge of designing ships to meet multiple, sometimes contradictory requirements. In addition to aligning well with some modern trends in ship design and construction, this type of problem is seen to offer potential benefits in engineering education. These benefits are discussed, in addition to the potential complications they bring to various aspects of the design exercise.
