What's on at Engineering and Design | Mānawa Mai Open Day
Get a taste of your future! Explore our vibrant campus in the heart of the City. Come and meet our staff and students, and get a feel for what Waipapa Taumata Rau, the University of Auckland, is all about.
Mānawa Mai Open Day is your chance to find out what it's like to be a student with us! Registrations are open for this year's event!
Come along and experience our campus in person and discover the worlds of Architecture, Engineering, Design, and Urban Planning. Whanau and supporters are welcome to attend to find out more about life at the University of Auckland.
How to find the Faculty of Engineering and Design
The University of Auckland Faculty of Engineering and Design's main facilities are conveniently located at the heart of the University's City Campus, and are easily accessible via many forms of public transport. There are two main entrances to our facilities: one at 5 Grafton Road, which leads to Level 2, and one at 20 Symonds Street, which leads to Level 4.
Visit the Mānawa Mai Open Day page to find the Open Day map and further details on how to get to our City Campus and Grafton Campus (including how to book your free AT bus/train ticket for the day). For further information on public transport schedules, visit the Auckland Transport website.
A map of the event space will be uploaded closer to the day. Watch this space!
What's happening at the faculty
Activations and displays from our faculty, departments, and school will be spread across our facilities. These 50 tables and displays showcase the wide range of study and research opportunities on offer to visitors.
Check out the table below to find out their location on the day!
| Level 3 | Activation |
|---|---|
| Chemical and Materials Engineering | Candy floss making Popcorn making Displays highlighting the current research being conducted within the department |
| Civil and Environmental Engineering | Mechanically Stabilised Earth Liquefaction Tank Colilert Tests Surface Runoff Hydraulic Flume Aqualibrium Augmented Reality Sandbox Bridge Model Testing Shaking Table Testing Portal Frame Building Robot Dogs Virtual Reality Demos Induction Pavements Racecourse |
| Design | Displays of current students’ work Tours of the design facilities |
| Electrical, Computer, and Software Engineering | Drawing with Machine Learning Large Language Models (LLM) Renewable Energy Smart Car Racing Real-time IoT monitoring Flappy Bird Console Fruit Picking and Chatbot Robots |
| Clubs Zone | Engineering for Sustainable Project Wellbeing Rainbow Engineering South Pacific Indigenous Students of Urban Planning and UoA Advanced Foiling Team University of Auckland Formula SAE Women in Engineering Network |
| Level 4 | Activation |
|---|---|
| Faculty of Engineering and Design | Instant Photo Station Pop Up Cinema |
| Architecture and Urban Planning | Displays of current students’ work Tours of the facilities and |
| Engineering Science and Biomedical Engineering | Travelling Salesperson Diamond Optimisation Interactive Heart Gut Pseudo-Hologram Wind Turbine Geothermal |
| Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering | 299 Workshop Practice and Laser Cutting Mechatronics Design Mechanical Design Warman Tours of some of the labs Vibrations, Dynamics, and Aerodynamics and Materials |
| Auckland Bioengineering Institute (ABI) |
*Please note this list is subject to change.
With so much to see, come along to Mānawa Mai Open Day and experience it all for yourself!
Faculty talks
We will have a mixture of short talks (10-minutes long) and long talks (20-minutes long) running throughout the day. These talks cover work, research, and need-to-know information from each of our departments and school.
Short talks are designed to provide the most important information to those attending in an easily understandable format. These provide insights, as well as a look into some of the research and examples of future careers that graduates can pursue.
The long talks provide a deeper dive into specific topics related to our departments and the school, allowing students to gain an in-depth understanding of the work that goes on within the Faculty of Engineering and Design.
Watch this space! Our Faculty talks schedule will be posted closer to Mānawa Mai Open Day.
| Time | Engineering Short Talks |
|---|---|
| 9:30 am | Department of Electrical, Computer, and Software Engineering |
| 10:00 am | Department of Engineering Science and Biomedical Engineering |
| 10:30 am | Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering |
| 11:00 am | Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering |
| 11:30 am | Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering |
| 12:00 pm | Faculty of Engineering and Design |
| 12:30 pm | Department of Engineering Science and Biomedical Engineering |
| 1:00 pm | Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering |
| 1:30 pm | Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering |
| 2:00 pm | Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering |
| 2:30 pm | Department of Electrical, Computer, and Software Engineering |
| Time | Engineering Long Talks |
|---|---|
| 9:45 am | Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering: Because we are living in the real world |
| 10:15 am | Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Discover Civil and Environmental Engineering |
| 10:45 am | Department of Electrical, Computer, and Software Engineering: Software Engineering Deep Dive |
| 11:15 am | Department of Engineering Science and Biomedical Engineering: Mathematical Modelling for Industry |
| 11:45 am | Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering: Aerodynamics and Drones – Mechanical Engineering in Flight |
| 12:15 pm | Department of Electrical, Computer, and Software Engineering: Computer Systems Engineering - Building Internet-Connected Intelligent Computing Devices |
| 12:45 pm | Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Discover Civil and Environmental Engineering |
| 1:15 pm | Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering: Because we are living in the real world |
| 1:45 pm | Department of Electrical, Computer, and Software Engineering: Electrical Forces Rule the World |
| 2:15 pm | Department of Engineering Science and Biomedical Engineering: Solving challenging medical problems through engineering. |
| 2:45 pm | Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering: Inkjet Printers |
| Time | Design Talks |
|---|---|
| 10:30 am | Short Talk: Design |
| 11:00 am | Design Lab Tour |
| 11:30 am | Long Talk: Design |
| 12:30 am | Short talk: Design |
| 1:00 pm | Design Lab Tour |
| 1:30 pm | Long Talk: Design |
| Time | Architecture and Urban Planning Talks |
|---|---|
| 10:30 am | Short Talk - Architecture and Urban Planning |
| 11:00 am | Long Talk - Architecture: The Bachelor of Architecture Studies as Seen Through Student Design Projects |
| 11:30 am | Long Talk - Urban Planning: Debate NIMBYISM vs YIMBYISM, the battle for Auckland's future. |
| 12:30 am | Short Talk - Architecture and Urban Planning |
| 1:00 pm | Long Talk - Architecture: The Bachelor of Architecture Studies as Seen Through Student Design Projects |
| 1:30 pm | Long Talk - Urban Planning: Debate NIMBYISM vs YIMBYISM, the battle for Auckland's future. |
Mānawa Mai Open Day 2025 highlights
Watch our Mānawa Mai Open Day 2025 highlight reel and get a glimpse into what the day is all about.