uwloo

BME 261Prototyping, Simulation and Design

Units
0.50
Faculty
Engineering
Subject
Biomedical Engineering

When it runs

  1. F24
  2. W25
  3. S25
  4. F25
  5. W26
  6. S26
  7. F26
  8. W27
  9. S27

Ran in 2 of the last 7 terms. Winter 2027: not on the schedule. Spring 2027: schedule not out yet.

Students develop biomedical systems through integrated design approaches involving mechanical, electrical, and software components. The course emphasizes problem-solving, simulation, and prototyping, with exposure to development cycles and revision control. Students apply engineering principles from multiple domains and use tools such as CAD and digital manufacturing tools to create functional prototypes. Integration of subsystems across multiple domains will be reinforced through overlapping elements with BME 252, BME 284, BME 294, and BME 294L.

Prerequisites

Antirequisites

None listed.

Leads to

No course lists it as a requisite.

Reviewed on UW Flow

54% liked it50% easy50% useful

From 24 ratings and 7 comments on UW Flow. The most helpful comments, quoted as written, without names. Read them all on UW Flow.

  • It is impossible to please this man. What a horrible way to teach this course. I was quite excited to take this course, I enjoy design and I liked the project objective. If this was a side project I was doing, I would have definitely enjoyed it. But man, this prof and his TAs suck the life and enjoyment out of everything. They're insanely disorganized and there's a lack of communication on every part of the course. There are no rubrics, marking is up in the air. It depends on their moods. It depends on who marks it. You can get marks off for the prof's "preferences". I'm sorry, but this isn't engineering design, it should be called pleasing Borland. And I wish I learned to do that and get…

    Jul 2020 · didn’t like it · 2 found this helpfulOn UW FlowRemove this

  • I am currently taking this course online, and just like for all my other courses, I came into it with a degree of leniency since it is difficult to teach some courses online. But this whole course was just incredibly confusing. Firstly, in design courses, you just design a product addressing the situation of concern in the best possible way. However, the soc was incredibly specific, to the point where they were pretty much just telling us what to do. They forced us to delegate tasks in a very strict manner. You were discouraged from trying to do a bit of everything or even use each other's testing data. Marking has also been a mess. There are no rubrics, so most marks are just arbitrarily…

    Jul 2020 · didn’t like it · 2 found this helpfulOn UW FlowRemove this

  • This course was so poorly organized by TAs and professor. The TAs would dock marks for different things and would never give a straight answer about deliverables. Nobody knows what's going on and check ins + help sessions are so counter productive.

    Jul 2020 · didn’t like it · 2 found this helpfulOn UW FlowRemove this

  • By far the worst course of 2B.

    Aug 2021 · didn’t like it · 1 found this helpfulOn UW FlowRemove this

  • Pretty disorganized course. Topics were shallow where we spent a good chunk of the course learning MATLAB and barely had time to finish the final project which was worth a good chunk of our grade.

    Sep 2016 · liked it · 1 found this helpfulOn UW FlowRemove this

Discussed on r/uwaterloo

One post or comment in 1 thread mentions BME 261, October 2017 to December 2024. Quoted word for word, newest first; each reply sits under the post and the comment that started its branch. Search r/uwaterloo for newer posts.

Fall 2017

Any way to disable UWCourseLinker from posting? 16 points, 26 comments

“posting a reply to my comment I find the bot annoying.”

u/Jackhofmann: “PSYCH 483 PSYCH 484 PSYCH 485 PSYCH 486 PSYCH 490R PSYCH 499A PSYCH 499B PSYCH 499C PSYCH 621 PSYCH 630 PSYCH 677A PSYCH 704A PSYCH 704B PSYCH 707 PSYCH 710 PSYCH 714 PSYCH 717 PSYCH 720A PSYCH 721A …”

u/Jackhofmann: “… 669 BIOL 680 BIOL 681 BIOL 690 BME 101 BME 101L BME 121 BME 161 BME 181 BME 201 BME 213 BME 261 BME 281 BME 281L BME 285 BME 285L BME 302 BME 362 BME 364 BME 384 BME 386 BME 392 BME 392L BUS 111W BUS 127W BUS 208W BUS 223W BUS 231W BUS 233W BUS 247W BUS 283W BUS 288W BUS 352W …”

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Check it elsewhere for Fall 2026

Calendar versions

Undergraduate Calendar