Thursday, January 26, 2023

Clocking a personal best

Waterloo teammates (l-r) Connor Kirby, Jatin Mehta, Ryan Larkin, Vivek Bhardwaj, Andre Slavescu, Brian Mao, Evelyn Campbell and John Liu pose with their self-driving race car at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

By Brian Caldwell. This article was originally published on Waterloo News.

Students at the University of Waterloo continue to push the limits of autonomous vehicles as members of a multi-school racing team.

Eight engineering, computer science and mathematics students from Waterloo teamed up with peers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Pittsburgh and the Rochester Institute of Technology for a high-profile event earlier this month at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

In its fourth on-track competition since the Indy Autonomous Challenge began in 2019, the joint team finished fourth and set a personal best by clocking over 150 mph with its million-dollar, self-driving Indy car.

Waterloo made its mark at the Indy Autonomous Challenge in Las Vegas.

“It's also been an amazing learning experience collaborating with students from other institutions to tackle such a challenging problem together,” said Brian Mao (BASc ’20, mechanical engineering), an applied math master’s student and engineering graduate.

Nine teams representing 17 universities from six countries competed in Las Vegas, with team PoliMOVE from Politecnico di Milano in Italy and the University of Alabama taking top spot with a top speed of 180 mph.

In addition to Mao, Waterloo was represented in Las Vegas by students Connor Kirby, Jatin Mehta, Ryan Larkin, Vivek Bhardwaj, Andre Slavescu, Evelyn Campbell and John Liu.

Held in conjunction with the annual Consumer Electronics Show, the event consisted of an elimination tournament with multiple rounds of head-to-head passing matches featuring programmed Dallara AV-21 cars.

Next up: Monza, Italy

Waterloo has now taken part in four events at famous racetracks, including the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and is now gearing up for the next competition on road courses, not banked oval tracks, in Monza, Italy in June.

“It's been an amazing opportunity to advance autonomous vehicle technology in such a unique manner,” said Mao, who hopes to travel to Italy for the event. “My work on the team has already led to an academic publication, and the team is set to have additional publications in the future.”

The challenge was launched with the goal of advancing self-driving technology and speeding up its commercialization. Teams from more than 40 universities were initially involved, with a series of simulated races leading up to the first single-car time trials at Indy.

Waterloo entered a small team called WATORACE before teaming up with the three U.S. schools to pool resources and expertise.

mathNEWS turns 50

This article was originally published on the Faculty of Mathematics website.

mathNEWS, the freewheeling Faculty of Math undergrad newsletter, turned 50 on Wednesday.

The first issue, published January 25, 1973, was introduced as an informal alternative to existing student publications, containing “not much math and even less news.” mathNEWS (the title styling has remained both consistent and deeply insistent) featured a mixture of hand-drawn comic strips, fiction, nonfiction pieces on everything from mathematical proofs to cafeteria food, and classified ads. Students advertised intramural sports teams and looked for missed connections, conducted interviews with experts and wrote long musings on failed romantic endeavours.

mathNEWS receives funding from MathSoc, the undergraduate student association, but is editorially independent from it, allowing for a wide variety of material and perspectives. The content can be “authentic, expressive, humorous, serious, or reflective,” says Clara Xi, a fourth-year computer science student and editor. While editors proofread content and make sure there isn’t anything “that will get us sued,” the writers are given a huge amount of leeway.

In the fifty years since its inception, surprisingly little at mathNEWS has changed. The staff is still all-volunteer: writers and editors meet every other Monday night to work on the biweekly issues, and are rewarded with free pizza and camaraderie. The publication process has gotten much easier, with a switch from typewriters and physical layouts to shared Wordpress documents and digital files. The actual newsletter, however, is still released mainly in print: 750 copies, every couple Fridays or so, dropped off across campus and immediately picked up by eager readers.

“I think it’s really important that it exists in print, because mathNEWS is something that people casually pick up on their way to class,” Xi says. The content is deeply contextual: recent issues, for example, include collections of funny quotes from professors, or reviews of the best benches on campuses.

The newsletter also provides a vital outlet for community and creativity. “It doesn’t have to be about stuff like computer science,” says Daniel Matlin, a fourth-year computer science student and editor. “It allows people to get their thoughts out about whatever is important to them, which is a very broad category.”  

In an increasingly digital age, readership has only gone up. When she started working on mathNEWS prior to the pandemic, Xi reflects, there were around 20 writers contributing to issues. The COVID-19 pandemic, of course, sent everyone home for months, but digital meetings and PDF issues continued. When production resumed in person, 50-60 people showed up for production night – and they just kept coming. The most recent issue, released in December, is 56 pages long, all of it original content.

For Evan Girardin, a fourth-year computer science and pure math student and mathNEWS editor, the homemade, retro feel of mathNEWS is key to its success. He encountered his first issue during his first week at Waterloo: the orientation issue is always “snuck into” students’ welcome bags. He thought the publication seemed funny and highly specific, and he was eager to make friends, so he started attending production meetings.

Four years later, he’s reflecting on the mathNEWS legacy. “There’s a lot of history – oral tradition, almost,” he says. The mathNEWS office is papered with old issues and doodles. There’s a plank from the Red Room, a central room from earlier in the building’s history that was torn out. Next to a neat row of cloth-bound archival issues, in pride of place, is a bottle of the 1997 fad drink Orbitz: it was brought to a meeting, never opened, and has remained – totemic – ever since. “It’s actually in our constitution now,” he laughs. “If mathNEWS ever dissolves the last editors have to drink the Orbitz.”

In a nod to the 50 years of inside jokes, late nights in the office, and student creativity, this year’s issues will feature content and design styles from the archives, as well as interviews with and reflections from past writers and editors. While some things have changed, the editors are confident that the same irreverent, affectionate spirit that began and sustained it will keep mathNEWS going for years to come. “I think the reason that mathNEWS has persisted for 50 years,” Girardin says, “is because people care. They care about making it happen.”

The first 2023 issue of mathNEWS comes out this Friday. You can check out past issues on their website.

Pavle Radovanovic awarded the 2023 Research Excellence in Materials Chemistry

This article was originally published on the Faculty of Science website.

Radovanovic, a professor in the Department of Chemistry, is rising star in nanoscience and nanotechnology. His work is notable for both its breadth and depth as well as its undeniable quality and impact. He has established a strong international reputation in his field and his findings are influencing fields beyond his main research areas.

"The impact of Pavle Radovanovic’s contributions to understanding the physical properties of low dimensional materials is matched equally by the contagious, enthusiastic curiosity that he brings to the laboratory every day," said John Corrigan, Chemistry Chair.

His lab combines fundamental research, applied research and industry partnerships to investigate multifunctionality at the nanoscale and the application of multifunctional nanostructures for energy-efficient and sustainable technologies. 

The overall theme of his research program is understanding fundamental principles governing the coexistence of and correlations among different properties in complex nanostructured materials, which are often considered to be mutually exclusive. Simultaneous control of multiple functionalities at the nanoscale could lead to radically new approaches to energy conversion, and sustainable energy-efficient information technologies, photonics, and catalysis.

His research has been published in some of the highest ranking journals and he also holds four patents. His work is opening exciting avenues especially in room temperature, quantum information processing and sensing. He also developed a new class of hybrid white light emitting nanostructures (NanoLite^TM), which has paved the way to low-cost, efficient and sustainable solid-state lighting technologies.

His research has been recognized by a number of honours and awards, including the 2019 Keith Laidler Award (CSC), Discovery Accelerator Supplement Award (NSERC), Tier 2 Canada Research Chair, Early Researcher Award (Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation), and Mobility Award (French Ministry of Foreign Affairs). He is an elected Fellow of the International Association of Advanced Materials, and was a Visiting Professor at the University of California-Berkeley.

Radovanovic is the first Waterloo chemist to win the award.

Congratulations Dr. Radovanovic!

Centre for Teaching Excellence offers Intensive Course Design workshop

A message from the Centre for Teaching Excellence (CTE).

The Teaching Excellence Academy (TEA) is being reprised! It will be held this year on April 19, 20, 21, and 24. The TEA is aimed primarily at experienced faculty members who want the opportunity to rejuvenate their teaching. At the TEA, attendees will thoroughly revise one of their courses (face-to-face, fully online, or blended) with the assistance of their peers and experts from the Centre for Teaching Excellence (CTE) and the Centre for Extended Learning (CEL). Past attendees have reported that the TEA helped them to design more effective courses and make their design choices more transparent for their students. The TEA ends with a showcase event at which TEA participants share their revised course outlines. 

Interested faculty members should contact their department Chair/Director or faculty Teaching Fellow/Associate Dean, Teaching, for more information. 

Saturday promises to be fantastic and other notes

Saturday, January 28 is Fantastic Alumni, Faculty, Staff and Retirees Day featuring Warrior Basketball vs Algoma in the PAC. The women's game starts at 4:00 p.m., with the men's game at 6:00 p.m. Doors open at 3:00 p.m.

The event will feature a Think Pink haircutting/head shaving ceremony and the always-awesome Airplane toss for amazing prizes.

All registered guests will receive one free paper airplane upon admission, and additional paper airplanes can be purchased for $2 each or 3 for $5. All proceeds will support the Breast Cancer Cause at the Canadian Cancer Society as part of the Think Pink campaign.

Purchase tickets.

In other news, the University's campuses closed at 5:00 p.m. yesterday due to the return of wild winter weather, which dumped several centimetres of wet snow across the region. As of 6:00 a.m. this morning, all Waterloo campuses reopened. Please use caution while travelling to and from campus as the roads and sidewalks on and off campus are cleared of ice and snow. And tip your hat to Plant Operations grounds crews as they worked to clear campus roads, walkways, parking lots and building entrances yesterday and early this morning to ensure that campus could open safely.

Decisions about closing campus are made in accordance with the University's weather closing guidelines. For updates, please monitor the University's Weather Statement page at: https://bit.ly/3gix5oo.

Here's today's Consent Week Tip of the Day provided by the Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Office (SVPRO):

No one likes rejection and many people go through life trying to avoid it, however, rejection is part of life and part of consensual interactions. Everyone has the right to say no.

Tip: If someone says no to something you ask them to do, do not ask again, respect no the first time they convey it. Pestering, pushing, pressuring and manipulating someone into saying yes is NOT consent.