Toys and engineering materials

Introduction

Engineers need to have a sound understanding of materials and their properties in order to select an appropriate material for any particular design or purpose. This free course, Toys and engineering materials, develops your understanding of the impact of new engineering materials on the changing design of toys and motor vehicles.

Often, the development of an engineering product, such as a motor vehicle, is taken for granted and the link to the development of the component parts that allow these developments to occur is missed. For example, the impact of carbon fibre on the development of high performance vehicles, or the impact of battery technology on the development of electrically powered vehicles.

The availability of more sophisticated materials has driven the evolution of motor vehicles, and this is well captured by examining the evolving design and performance of the vehicles at the motor museum, as shown in the introductory trailer of this course.

This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University courses T271 Core engineering A [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] and T272 Core engineering B.