School of Mechanical Engineering and Electronic Information: Gathering the Dynamic Energy of All Parties to Build a Strong School of Engineering

During its 70 years of education, the School of Mechanical Engineering and Electronic Information (hereafter referred to as this School) has always its original mission of “educating people for the Party and the country”, resonated with the development of the manufacturing industry of the Republic, provided talent training support around the major development strategic needs of the country, tackled common technical problems in the industry, provided intellectual support around the needs of enterprises, and formed a new engineering school featuring the research of “intelligent geological engineering equipment”, aiming at the deep integration of teaching, enterprise, university, research and application, and serving the field of earth science, which is well known in the domestic mechanical and electrical field

Leading by Party Building; Distinctive Ideological and Political Work

School of Mechanical Engineering and Electronic Information originated from Specialty of Exploration Machinery under Department of Exploration Engineering found in Beijing College of Geology in 1954. In 1998, it was incorporated into a new department named Department of Mechanical and Electronic Engineering (college-level) with Specialty of Electronic Information Engineering under School of Information Engineering. After two adjustments in 2003 and 2008, it was renamed School of Mechanical Engineering and Electronic Information. Now this School has four departments and three university-level teaching and research centers: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Department of Electronic Information Engineering, Department of Industrial Design, Department of Communication Engineering, Mechanical Engineering Teaching Experiment Center, CAD Center and Equipment and Instrument Research Institute respectively. Now this School has 135 faculty members and 105 full-time teachers, among which there are 29 professors, 61 associate professors, 19 doctoral supervisors, 2 winners of National Talent Program, 2 provincial famous teachers, and 6 winners of Hubei Talent Program. It has two provincial teaching teams, including the engineering machinery design and its automation teaching team and mechanical and electrical innovation and entrepreneurship interdisciplinary teaching team, and one national online first-class course of metal materials and heat treatment.

School of Mechanical Engineering and Electronic Information holds the League day activity themed “Love our Party and make contributions to the new era” 

Guided by Xi Jinping’s thought of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era, the Party Committee of this School, closely focusing on the central work of the University and taking virtues and morality cultivation as the fundamental task, has built the “Internet + ideological and political” education pattern, with the E-class as the overall plan, the “cugjdxy” WeChat official account as the construction focus, and the space, Tiktok, Tieba and other network platforms as the support.

The Party Committee of the this School insists on the coordinated development of class and league construction under the leadership of Party building, takes the construction of model party branches as the starting point, closely follows the important time nodes to carry out various thematic education activities, explores and forms the brand work with unique characteristics, such as “Party carder training class”, “Xiangyang Youth League School”, “student leaders forum”, “my university, my growth season” series of lectures, robot competitions, etc. The School actively invites the national “Model Workers”, the national “May Day” labor medal and the annual figure of “Craftsman of Great Powers” to give thematic lectures, which has conveyed the spirit of Great Powers of model worker, labor spirit, craftsman spirit and anti epidemic spirit to every student, and improved the effectiveness of education. Han Lei, a PhD student of Grade 2016, has been awarded 2018 The Stars of Self-improvement of Chinese College Students, the 2020 China’s Positive and Kind-Hearted Young People, and Nomination of Chinese College Students for the Year 2020.

Advancing with the Times; New Engineering Education to a New Level

Since February 2017, the Ministry of Education has been actively promoting the construction of new engineering disciplines and making every effort to explore and form a Chinese model and Chinese experience leading the global engineering education, to help build a powerful country in higher education. In order to actively cooperate with the national strategic planning and policy requirements, accelerate the development and construction of “new engineering”, and actively adapt to and lead the educational reform needs of the new economy, this School, with the purpose of “innovation, pragmatism, erudition, and knowledge”, has taken the initiative to layout the training of “new engineering” talents and educational innovation, and formed the “new engineering” professional direction represented by mechanical design and manufacturing and its automation, electronic information engineering, industrial design, and communication engineering. This School now has one PhD program in the second-level discipline of geological equipment engineering, three master’s programs in the first-level disciplines (mechanical engineering, information and communication engineering and design) and five teaching and research platforms at state-level, province-level and ministry-level (National Engineering Practice & Education Center of China University of Geosciences (Wuhan)---China Geological Equipment Co., Ltd, Engineering Research Center of Rock-soil Drilling & Excavation and Protection, Ministry of Education, and Experimental and Teaching Demonstration Center for Electronics and Electrotechnics of Universities in Hubei Province,  Hubei Intelligent Geological Equipment Engineering Technology Research Center, and Hubei Advanced Drilling and Excavation Machinery Technology Transformation Pilot Test Base). Among them, mechanical engineering has become an important part of "intelligent geological equipment" direction of "double first-class" discipline construction of the university, two majors including mechanical design and manufacturing and its automation, electronic information engineering have become the ones in the national "double-ten-thousand” plan, and the major of communication engineering has become the one in provincial "double-ten-thousand” plan. There are more than 2400 students in this School, including 1800 undergraduates, 600 postgraduates and doctoral students.

As one of the construction units of the national "Excellence Engineer" program of the Ministry of Education, this School has taken the national engineering practice education center as an important support to enhance the engineering practice ability of students. Under the background of new economy and new industry, this School has always adhered to the four returns of “return to common sense, return to the essence, return to the original aspiration and return to dreams”, highlighted the advantages of geography, faced the new requirements and trends of new engineering construction, built a new "five-in-one" talent training model with personalization as the premise, informatization as the means, collaboration as the basis, socialization as the way and internationalization as the extension, and has delivered a batch of high-quality new engineering talents with comprehensive development of morality, intelligence, physique, beauty and labor, profound humanistic and natural science foundation, solid professional knowledge and practical skills, and innovative spirit and ability for the country and society. Since 2019, the School has set up a special program for overseas studying visits, and has organized three batches of dedicated studying visits for a total of more than 60 students to help them expand their international horizons.

Over the past 68 years, this School has trained more than 12000 graduates, including Yao Ningping, the winner of the "National May Day Labor Medal", Zhang Fuqiang, the "Young Professionals in Central Enterprises", Yuan Fudong, a member of the climbing team for the relay of the Olympic torch at Mount Everest during the Beijing Olympic Games, Lu Luhua, a caring private entrepreneur, Luo Ling, a national defense student who fought in the prevention and control of the COVID-19, and Zhong Xian, a young pioneer of national rural revitalization. More than 500 students were honored with various awards, including 2018 The Stars of Self-improvement of Chinese College Students, the 2020 China’s Positive and Kind-Hearted Young People, and Nomination of Chinese College Students for the Year 2020. The new engineering talents cultivated by the School are playing an important role in intelligent manufacturing, intelligent construction, information transmission, software and information technology services, natural resources and other related fields.

School of Mechanical Engineering and Electronic Information holds robotics competitions

“In the course of the project, we applied the design methods told by teachers in class. In the future, I will continue to accumulate the design methods and improve my learning ability.” Yang Chenhao of Class 074191 said. In May this year, the “Huawei Smart Office Product Experience Innovation Workshop”, held by Wuhan Huawei Hardware Engineering Experience & Design Department and jointly participated by the Industrial Design Department of the School of Mechanical Engineering and Electronic Information and the Product Design Department of the School of Art and Design of Wuhan University of Technology, ended, and the undergraduate team led by Yang Chenhao won the Best Innovation Award.

In the past five years, students of this School have actively participated in various discipline competitions at all levels and won hundreds of awards in many major professional competitions, such as the China College Students’ ‘Internet+’ Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition, the National “Challenge Cup” Undergraduate Extracurricular Science and Technology Works Competition, the National College Mechanical Innovation Competition, the Petroleum Equipment Innovation Design Competition, the Electronic Design Competition, and the Casting Process Design Competition for Chinese University Students, and have presided over 280 innovation and entrepreneurship training programs. 15 entrepreneurship teams have registered their own companies, the employment rate of undergraduates has reached 95.48% and that of postgraduates has reached 100%.

Qu Xianghua, Secretary of the Party Committee of this School, said that in the future, the School will further integrate high-quality industrial resources and social resources with enterprises and industries, break the barriers and boundaries that restrict talent training, and cultivate diversified and innovative outstanding engineering talents based on the innovative talent training mode of “industry-university cooperation”.

University and Enterprise Cooperation: “Government-Industry-University-Research" Cooperation and Integration into the Fast Lane

The “government-industry-university-research” cooperation is an urgent need to stimulate the scientific and technological innovation vitality of enterprises and to achieve the transformation and development, and also a strong support to cultivate emerging industries and enhance core competitiveness. This School has been actively promoting the “government-industry-university-research” cooperation. In February this year, the functional test of “aromatic block assembly and packaging intelligent production line” developed by the professor team of this School for Suzhou Zhanqiao Electrical Appliance Co., Ltd was completed, and it was delivered for trial production. Within three months after delivery, the production line realized the automation of the whole production process. From the injection molding of aromatic block and the removal of the glue channel, to the on-line measurement of aromatic block weight and vent, the automatic serial transportation of supports, and then to the assembly of aromatic block supports and the sealed packaging of finished products, the whole process is intelligent production. Every 10 seconds, one product is rolled off the production line, and the annual output of a single production line reaches 2.1 million, which greatly improves the production efficiency of enterprise, and creates a new way of benign interaction between technological innovation and market cultivation.

In July this year, this School and Dongguan Kobarry Automation Technology Co., Ltd jointly established the “Industrial Visual Inspection Industry Technology Innovation Center” to promote the R&D and transformation of key technologies on both sides. It takes the industrial technology innovation center as a medium to organize the school and enterprises to accelerate the R&D of key and forward-looking technologies through independent R&D and joint research, and to actively promote the industrialization of relevant new technological achievements.

In order to help students put what they have learned into practice and use what they have learned, from the middle of June this year, 34 junior students from the Department of Industrial Design of this School successively went to enterprises such as Wuhu EFORT Intelligent Equipment Co., Ltd. and Chery Automobile Co., Ltd. for more than three months of on-the-job practical training, in-depth workshop experience, and promotion of the combination of professional application theory and engineering practice, which opened the cooperation between this School and Wuhu Municipal Government.

On April 18, 2018, SY850H, China's first large forward shovel hydraulic excavator with independent intellectual property rights, jointly developed by the School of Mechanical Engineering and Electronic Information and Sany Heavy Machinery Co., Ltd., was officially launched and delivered in Kunshan, Jiangsu Province.

By promoting the precise connection between university and enterprises, this School has explored a new way for school and enterprises to cultivate talents, helped enterprises recruit more outstanding talents, created more and better jobs for college graduates, and made contributions to local economic and social development. It is understood that in recent years, this School has established cooperation with 45 well-known enterprises and institutions at home and abroad, including Shenzhen Konka Electronics Group, Efort Robotics Co., Ltd., China Railway Engineering Equipment Group, etc. It has 312 practice and training bases at all levels and 44 practice and teaching bases at university level and above, with 500 students going deep into the production line every year for practice and training. It also has won 42 industry-university collaborative education projects from the Ministry of Education, which produced good social and economic benefits.

School of Mechanical Engineering and Electronic Information organizes study tours to Hanyang University in South Korea

This School has always attached importance to international cooperation and exchange, carried out extensive cooperation with world-class universities and top research institutions, and established close exchanges and cooperation with more than ten well-known universities at home and abroad, such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, Colorado School of Mines, etc. During the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan”, this School began to enroll communication engineering full English program for international students, and trained 65 international students from 19 countries in total.

Take Initiatives for Close Connection of Scientific Research and the Industry Needs

The Fifth China Intelligent Geological Equipment Technology Development Forum was held in CUG

For quite a long time, the teachers of the School of Mechanical Engineering and Electronic Information have applied the advanced design theories and technical methods in the fields of machinery, electronics and information, devoted to the research of mechanism and mechanical system dynamics, advanced mechanical design methods and opto-mechatronics, carried out research and development of new intelligent geological engineering equipment, and took practical actions to make scientific research and innovation achievements closely linked with the national development needs.

At present, this School has eight scientific research teams, including advanced mechanism and robot equipment, special equipment research and development, virtual reality and industrial vision, special processing technology and equipment, complex communication system signal processing, micro-nano optical electromechanical system, intelligent + radar system design, advanced sensing technology and the Internet of Things, 4 industrial technology innovation centers, including drainage environment treatment equipment industrial technology innovation center, infrastructure equipment industrial technology innovation center, high-end analog digital chip advanced digital industrial technology innovation center and bulk clean transportation technology innovation center, and have established nine joint graduate training bases, forming the prototype of “land, sea and air” three-dimensional system with “a solid land foundation, sound marine development and advanced spatial layout”. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, this School has been approved 410 scientific research projects with the project amount of RMB 101,395,400 Yuan, has published 409 papers above T4, has been authorized 278 national invention patents, and won 3 second prizes of Hubei Science and Technology Progress Award.

Carry forward the cause and forge ahead into the future to make more achievements. Ding Huafeng, Dean of the School, said that in the future, the School will continue to combine local economic development and the unique geological advantages of the university, seize the opportunities for the development of geological engineering equipment and robots to make up for the shortcomings of the discipline, integrate research directions to form a synergy, and focus on integrating internal and external resources and introduce or cultivate leading talents. The School will further unite efforts and plan for the future, and make unremitting efforts to cultivate new people of the times, promote high-quality development, and accelerate the construction of a first-class new engineering School. (Contributing editor: Xu Yan; Reviewed by Cao Nanyan)