Tuesday, September 11, 2018

Student project captures national Dyson award

by Carol Truemner. This article was originally published in Waterloo Stories.

A blog post, written by a visually impaired person about the challenges she faced trying to use the office’s new touch screen coffee maker, was the inspiration behind a recent Waterloo Engineering Capstone Design project. WatVision took home top honours in the national leg at this year’s James Dyson Award for its clever, yet simple engineering principles.

Developed by six mechatronics engineering students, WatVision is a system that reads out words or numbers on a device allowing visually impaired individuals to make a cup of java, select an elevator floor or perform other functions most people take for granted.

WatVision includes an app as well as a ring that the user wears on a finger. By pointing a smart phone camera at a touch screen, the app reads out whatever word or number is underneath the individual’s finger. One of the main advantages of the ring design is that it costs less than $2 to produce.

For a better user experience, the team also designed a glove that includes a bluetooth sensor and a motor which gives feedback in the form of vibrations at the user's fingertip indicating the distance away from the button.

When it came to selecting a Capstone Design project last year, the mechatronics students decided they wanted to design something that would help with accessibility.

“We looked at creating braille readers at first, but decided that would be way too hard,” says Craig Loewen, a WatVision member. “When [a team member] read a blog post about an individual not being able to make coffee because she couldn’t use the touch screen, we all said that we could solve that problem.”

Positive feedback

Team members tested their prototype system on people with different levels of visual impairment.

“In about 30 minutes, the person who was blind was able to go through a few screens on a touch screen. Another individual with low vision was able to use it instantly and really liked it,” says Loewen.

In March, WatVision captured a GM Innovation Award as well as second place in the People’s Choice Award during TronCon, an annual mechatronics engineering event that connects alumni with current students.

Team members Loewen, Jennifer Kim, Joseph Lundy, Lior Lustgarten, Elizabeth Morrow and Jake Rampertab, graduated from Waterloo last spring and have all landed full-time jobs throughout North America. 

The team hopes to integrate images and colours into the next version of WatVision and for users to navigate the touch screen without wearing a ring. They will put the $3,000 James Dyson Award prize towards maintaining server access subscriptions and computing time.

The team has made WatVision open source to allow access for others to make improvements and upgrades. A couple of members plan to talk to companies about the possibility of integrating it into their products. Ideally, they’d like to see their system in place at various places including airports, grocery self-checkouts and ATMs.

Loewen, now working for Microsoft in Seattle, feels that Waterloo’s co-op system gave WatVision a competitive edge in the national Dyson award competition.  

“Our team members had different co-op experiences.  Some people had exclusively software jobs, some people had electrical. I was mainly working as a project manager,” he explains. “Our broad expertise was really valuable when it came to designing our product.”

WatVision and the two national runners up will move onto the next stage of the James Dyson Award where a panel of Dyson engineers will select a shortlist of international projects later this month.

Learn to write and publish a great research paper

A workshop to help researchers learn how to write a great research paper, get it accepted, and understand the publishing process is planned for September 27 at 10:00 a.m. Registration is required to attend.

Designed for early career or seasoned researchers, the workshop will be delivered by editors from the Lancet and Cell Press. Attendees will learn how to:

• identify the right journal
• use proper scientific language
• structure articles
• understand the peer-review process
• consider publishing ethics, and
• get research noticed.

Refreshments and an Amazon Kindle Fire HD raffle will follow the workshop.

Volunteer Fair connects students with community agencies

The Centre for Career Action, EDGE, and Federation of Students will be hosting the Fall 2018 Volunteer Fair on Tuesday, September 25 from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. in the Student Life Centre Great Hall. This event offers students an opportunity to meet local organizations that are recruiting volunteers.

Representatives from 40 local organizations will be present to speak with current students about their organization’s mission and volunteering needs.

Volunteering is a great way to develop skills and gain experiences that can be showcased on a résumé and discussed in an interview. For those looking to give back to the community, it is a fulfilling way to contribute to local causes. It also provides an excellent opportunity for networking.

Interested students can register to attend online.

For more information, please contact Kayla Klimasko, Career Advisor (kayla.klimasko@uwaterloo.ca).  

Senior leaders flip burgers and other notes

The tradition continues: President Hamdullahpur and other members of the the University's senior leadership will be donning an apron and grabbing a BBQ flipper to help serve food to students today at the President and Senior Staff BBQ, held on the Davis Centre quad from noon to 1:30 p.m., or whenever the burgers run out. The University's top brass will welcome new and returning students while serving barbecue-style food (both meat and vegetarian options) as part of Welcome Week. In case of inclement weather, the cookout will be held in the SLC Great Hall.

The Department of Athletics will be hosting an open house event on Wednesday, September 12 from 9:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. in the SLC Great Hall.

Students and faculty are encouraged to come learn about what Athletics and Recreation programs will be offered during the Fall 2018 term including intramurals, fitness & wellness, conditioning, aquatics, First Aid, and more. 

There will be lots of great prizes to be won at this event including $100 from Boston Pizza. 

Find out how to register for Warrior Recreation.

The Centre for Career Action is hosting an event with Google on Thursday, September 13 from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. in DC 1350.

“Rock Your Technical Interview” is an educational workshop targeted at computer science and software engineering students that covers mock technical interview questions and tips from Google employees.

The workshop is open to all students who may want to learn more about the field as well as Google and its many opportunities.

Students can register online.