NE 466Tactile Sensors and Transducers

Units: 0.50
Faculty: Engineering
Subject: Nanotechnology Engineering

When it runs

Ran in 2 of the last 7 terms. Winter 2027: scheduled, 2 lecture sections. Spring 2027: schedule not out yet.

Tactile sensors, wearable sensors and applications. Principles of transduction including capacitive, piezoelectric, piezoresistive, percolation, and tunneling-based sensing. Designing bendable and stretchable sensors, and self-powered sensors. Applications including robotics, electronic skin, biometrics, and bio-vitals.

Prerequisites

Complete all of the following
- Students must be in level 3B or higher
- Enrolled in H-Biomedical Engineering, H-Chemical Engineering, H-Electrical Engineering, or H-Nanotechnology Engineering

Antirequisites

None listed.

Leads to

No course lists it as a requisite.

Winter 2027 sections

Enrolment from UW Open Data, which can trail Quest by up to two days. Instructors and rooms: Schedule of Classes.
Section	Class	Enrolled	Meets
LEC 001	4926	0 / 65	W 14:30–17:20
LEC 701	1991	25 / 9999	Online or by arrangement

Reviewed on UW Flow

33% liked it50% easy33% useful

From 3 ratings and 2 comments on UW Flow. The most helpful comments, quoted as written, without names. Read them all on UW Flow.

Literally don't take this class. Generations of nanos and even engineers from other departments advise against. Somehow the worst course I've taken. The content isn't bad but the lecture notes online are HORRIBLE. The delivery in class is incredibly dry, repetitive and confusing. Like, you're on your own. The homework is graded with NO part marks, and the solutions are vague and unhelpful. DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS. If you're reading this and considering it FIND AN ALTERNATIVE AND WARN ALL YOUR FRIENDS.

Apr 2025 · didn’t like it · 1 found this helpfulOn UW Flow Remove this
The course contains a lot of oversimplified models and part of over courses, which make it quite general, and interesting.

Jan 2026 · liked itOn UW Flow Remove this

Discussed on r/uwaterloo

3 posts and comments in 2 threads mention NE 466, June 2021 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.

Winter 2022

Mar 15, 2022 NE 486/481 or any Biosensors related course 0 points, 3 comments

“Edit: Ahh I am not sure if they changed it or I overlooked it, but I can't take biosensors anyway as it is offered in Winter and not Fall :( thus only my question remains how you experienced NE 481 …”

u/emananoo_10_9: “NE 486 got dropped kinda by surprise this year. NE 466 ended up basically being a big biosensors paper review. NE 481 is very not biosensors, it’s more biomaterials, and the follow up NE 488 is on tissue engineering”

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Spring 2021

Jun 13, 2021 Technical elective choice help: MTE 545, NE 481, BME 550, ECE 484, NE 466 1 point, 9 comments

u/throw789934: “Hello everyone. I am a struggling almost 4A student struggling to choose electives. If you have any experience from these courses and general topics, difficulty, other notes please lmk”

u/BME_or_Bust: “I took NE 466 online. Super short lectures and not many deliverables. Pretty long group research paper at the end. Not too hard, decently interesting, but meh prof.”