Mr Barney Townsend

My background is in Engineering Product Design, followed by an MSc in Enterprise. Externally to LSBU, I have previously worked in design of Sports Equipment, Medical Devices, and Paramotor Aircraft.
I teach on number of modules across the Design and Mechanical Engineering courses at LSBU, at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, specialising in engineering design methods that include creativity techniques, user research, innovation and enterprise, CAD, structural analysis, manufacturing, model making, prototyping (both digital and physical).
I am an active member of the Institution of Engineering Designers, and I participate regularly as a member of course accreditation panels.

Currently, my primary area of activity is in directing the LSBU Human Power Engineering group. This is an extra-curricular student team that designs, builds, and races various classes of human powered vehicles with the objective of breaking British and World human powered speed records. Research activities explore aerodynamics, drivetrain efficiency, and composite and CNC manufacturing techniques. In additional to the extra-curricular team, I supervise various student dissertation projects around this field, and am working with a production company documenting the project for a feature film entitled "The fastest bicycle in the world".
In other research activity, I am very interested in the intersection between digital and physical methods of form creation and enabling user innovation through more intuitive interfaces and physical or tangible computing as a means for developing novel CAD interfaces that bridge the gap between the digital and physical agency of a concept during the design process.

Deputy Head of Division, Mechanical Engineering and Design
Academic Lead, LSBU Human Power Engineering team