Friday, May 18, 2018

Researchers map out the ultimate pub crawl

Fancy a pint? How about 49,687 pints? If so, then Professor William Cook and his research team's map of the shortest route to nearly every pub in the United Kingdom is just what the barkeep ordered.

The map is the latest in a long line of Professor Cook's mathematical models that explore the "traveling salesman problem", an optimization exercise that has been studied for more than 80 years. 

"Given a collection of cities and the cost of travel between each pair of them, the traveling salesman problem, or TSP for short, is to find the cheapest way of visiting all of the cities and returning to your starting point," says Waterloo's TSP website.

Cook is a University Professor in Combinatorics and Optimization at Waterloo. His international research team has previously mapped the shortest routes to 49,603 sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the United States and the optimal route for Pokémon Go players to hit up Pokestops and gyms, to name just two recent examples.

"A nice thing about this type of work is that any hard example of the problem can lead to new research (with application to models in logistics, genetics, data analysis, and elsewhere)," writes Cook. "So, with that freedom, we can choose a problem that allows people to connect with mathematics." 

In the fall of 2016, Cook's research led to an optimal route to visit 24,727 pubs in the UK and the story took off, appearing in the Guardian and other media outlets.

"The coverage was great, leading to a few thousand comments and email messages complaining that we missed lots of pubs!" Cook writes. "We only visited about half of them, since our math optimization methods were not able to handle the full set of nearly 50,000."

"It took lots of work, but we now have found the shortest possible route to nearly every pub in the UK, a total of 49,687 stops."

How short? Well, the shortest-possible route to the 49,687 pubs has a total length 63,739,687 meters, or roughly 39,606 miles. That is 40 percent longer than the 2016 tour. For context, the full route is nearly a sixth of the distance to the moon.

"Not a bad price for hitting twice as many pubs," writes Cook.

I'll drink to that!

Waterloo builds goodwill at Canstruction event

by Natalie Quinlan.​

It was another successful year for The Food Bank of Waterloo Region’s annual Canstruction.

Canstruction engages members of the Waterloo region to put their creativity to the test, building a unique structure out of non-perishable items that will later be donated to those dealing with food insecurity.

In partnership with the Federation of Students Food Bank, the Faculty of Engineering and the Engineering Society, 13 team members from the University of Waterloo constructed a creation inspired by Scottish folklore—Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster. 

The build comprised of approximately 1,200 cans (about $1,900 worth of goods) and took about 1.5 hours to build. 

“I wanted to build something that would be different from previous years and showcase something with a lot of overhang,” said Rachel Yu, Engineering Society A-director and fourth-year mechanical engineering student. “We thought the Loch Ness monster would be a great way to do that.”

The final product stood proudly at six feet tall and 10 feet long at Conestoga Mall. In total, four months of planning and a series of 3D and 2D digital sketches were used to specifically map out each layer of the structure.

Wendi Campbell, chief executive officer at The Food Bank, explained between the food and financial support, the annual event provided 90,236 meals to those in need in the community.

“Canstruction provides a much needed boost to The Food Bank, especially as we head into the summer months, where donations slow down,” said Campbell. “All food items and funds raised help us provide food for 215 emergency hampers and more than 2,000 community meals, through the Community Food Assistance Network, needed every day in our community.”

For participants like Yu, it’s a fun and effective way to support an important cause while putting her engineering skills to practice. 

“While this gave me experience in planning and seeing what I needed to do ahead of time, it was also a great opportunity to make a positive impact on the community and help people who are less fortunate than us.”

Events like Canstruction not only foster partnerships between the Food Bank of Waterloo Region and the University, but also ensures that the main branch remains fully stocked. In turn, the Feds Student Food Bank, located in in SLC 2104, receives food from the regional food bank whenever required.

For those interested in donating, donation boxes can be found in the following locations around campus: DC Library, DP Library, ITMS Department, V1 Residence, MKV Residence, CLV Residence, CMH Residence, Velocity, REV Residence and in the SLC outside of the Food Bank Office. 

CUT award winner leverages reflection for instruction

This is an excerpt of an article that originally appeared on the Centre for Teaching Excellence (CTE) website.

Each year, the Centre for Teaching Excellence and Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs recognize and celebrate the teaching development efforts of a Waterloo graduate student with the Certificate in University Teaching (CUT) Award.

We’re excited to announce that the 2018 CUT Award has been awarded to Caitlin Scott from the School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability. The award honours Caitlin's commitment to implementing feedback for the continuous improvement and development of her teaching, her thoughtful approach to assessing student learning, and the practice of reflection that she regularly brings to her work as an instructor. 

We sat down with Caitlin to get an inside look at her experience in the CUT program and into what she believes motivates meaningful teaching and learning. Caitlin is a PhD candidate in Social and Ecological Sustainability. Her research examines the role of corporate actors in governance at the intersection of health and the environment. As Caitlin discusses below, engaging students in the difficult and often disheartening subject of environmental politics is an important pedagogical challenge she must grapple with in her teaching.

Read the CTE's interview with Caitlin

What's open and closed this long weekend

The unofficial start to the summer and gardening seasons is upon us as our community prepares to celebrate the Victoria Day long weekend. 

Victoria Day honours Queen Victoria, who reigned from 1837 to 1901, and is a statutory holiday. As it happens, one of Queen Victoria's 450 great-great-great-great-grandchildren is getting married tomorrow.

Most University operations will be closed on the holiday Monday. For example:

No lectures will be held on Monday.

The Physical Activities Complex and Columbia Icefield will be closed on Sunday, May 20 and Monday, May 21.

Retail Services operations will be closed from Saturday, May 19 to Monday, May 21, reopening Tuesday, May 22. Check the Retail Services website for more details.

Food Services locations that will be closed over the long weekend include:

Bon Appetit, Browser's Café, CEIT Café, the East End Café, FRSH, Liquid Assets, South Side Marketplace, Starbucks - AHS, Starbucks - STC, Tim Hortons - Davis Centre and Davis Centre Express, Tim Hortons - Modern Languages, Tim Hortons - South Campus Hall, Tim Hortons - Student Life Centre, the University Club, and Williams Fresh Café.

Food Services locations that will be open on the long weekend include the Market at UWP, which is open from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. on Sunday, May 20 and 10:00 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. on Monday, May 21.

Several other locations, including Eye Opener, H3 Café, REVelation, Mudie's, ML's Diner, and Tim Hortons - UWP, closed up shop for the summer in April and will reopen in September. Same goes for Brubaker's and Subway, which are closed during the SLC renovation.

The Dana Porter and Davis Centre libraries will be open for regular hours on Saturday and Sunday and from 12:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Monday, May 21.

In case of emergency, UW Police will be available at 519-888-4911 (ext. 22222 on campus). The Turnkey Desk in the Student Life Centre will be open as always, and the maintenance emergencies folks will be around as well at ext. 33793.