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I am currently studying for my HNC in electronics. Does anybody have any good project ideas relating to bio-medical engineering?

A test equipment project may be appropriate for you. This could be software based, hardware based or a combination of both.
Data logging or a simulator of some sort, for example an ecg simulator. Ask your local EBME if they have any requirements they may be able to assist in various ways funding, technical advice ect.Good luck in what ever you choose.

A novel item if test-gear, difficult. How about a fetal heart simulator, I do't mean an ECG simlator but an actual physical simulator, one that moves! How do people test fetal heart detectors, generally by wiggling the transducer back and forth a few inches above the desk-top. There must be a better way. How about mounting a waterproof speaker at the bottom of a tube, about the size of a large bean tin (that's A1 tall for those in the grocery trade), filling the tube with water, covering the top with a membrane and playing fetal heart movement shaped music into the speaker. Modern monitors use quite sophisticated algorithms to pick out the fetal heart doppler signal so ideally the signal should be a good one, though I guess a swept sinewave might do. Good luck.

Talk to Neil Lambden at Huntleigh Diagnostics in Cardif.(02920 485885). They use a waterproof speaker full of ultrasound gell driven from a CD player with a recording of a babies heartbeat. It's crude but it works. He may be interested in you coming up with something better.

Good Luck with whatever project you deciede upon - we made a fetal heart simulator from a bag of saline resting on the cone of a speaker, through which was played fetal heart recordings (which our friends at Cardiac services provided) - very crude but it works !! Maybe you can produce a more aesthetically pleasing device, but keep it simple.

How about a SPO2 simulator or a device to test probes. How many times do you get a probe in the workshop without anything decent to test it on.
Commercial simulators are available (Biotek Index) but these are very expensive and probably quite an overkill for most applications.

Look at the simulator from Viamed. It's not too expensive and can handle a wide range of manufacturers.
The ultrasound foetal heart detector seems to be the topic for your project. But I agree, keep it simple !

If anyone has a written project that is suitable for publishing on the internet e-mail it to ebme@ebme.co.uk in text word or text format (anything that may 'assist' new students).

What was the outcome?

Thanks to everybody for all the great suggestions. I am still unsure which to choose and I have only a few months left. The foetal monitor sounds like a good one though.