Engineering

The course provides understanding and knowledge about the behavior of advanced timber structures, tools for modeling and design, and the ability to weigh the pros and cons of different structural systems. The course includes the following parts: timber structures multi-story buildings and structures with a long span; instability of members (lateral torsional buckling of beams); straight and curved members; holes and notches in beams; cross-laminated timber; bracing of structures; design of details; connections for timber structures including dowel-type joints and glued joints; learning from failures; frames, arches, and cable structures; and the ability to independently approach, solve, and present one's work. 

This course familiarizes students with renewable energy resources and technologies for their utilization. The topic covered include, renewable energy resources, their advantages and limitations; the solar energy potential of Botswana; the utilization of solar energy for power generation: photovoltaic and solar thermal electric plants; solar cells, modules, arrays, and storage batteries; stand-alone and grid-connected photovoltaic plants; solar collectors; solar plants for thermal applications such as water heating, space heating and cooling, and refrigeration; technologies for the utilization of wind, biomass and geothermal energy, hydro-power, ocean and tidal energy; renewable energy system design and economics; and socio-economic and environmental aspects f renewable energy.

This course introduces students to the practical elements of mechanical design and manufacture to prepare them for the project work. It explores the full extent of the design process from customer brief through to conceptual and detail design. The instruction extends to teaching practical manufacturing skills to enable students to make these designs themselves in the departmental workshops.

This course on machine learning applications is divided into 3 thematic blocks: techniques for data adapting and cleaning; natural language processing; recommendations systems.

Recommended prerequisites: Calculus I and II, Linear Algebra, Probability and Data Analysis, Programming and Data Structures and Algorithms, Statistical Learning, Machine Learning I and II.

The course introduces the characteristics and properties of signals and systems and provide fundamental tools for their analysis and representation. 

This course teaches the concepts of the behavior, structure, problems, modeling, materials and the forms of failure of lightweight structures. Students analyze lightweight structures, understand designs, and predict behavior responses of certain structures. The course utilizes several examples relating to aircraft structures to teach the concepts.