The Pearl Sullivan Engineering Ideas Clinic has had many years of program growth and adoption; as of winter 2026, more than 60,000 students have participated in an Ideas Clinic activity. Our design activities have provided real-world design activities for thousands of students across Engineering. Other initiatives, like our teamwork training modules, have similarly been a huge success, with almost 19,000 students benefitting from them since the program began in 2016.
As we seek to expand the number and diversity of immersive, engineering design activities in the middle academic years, the IDEAs Clinic has created an open call for new activity proposals, and have offered a total of $40,000 in funding for eligible projects.
The 2026 request for proposals is available below:
Deadline for submissions is June 30, 2026, and proposals should be submitted to Chris Rennick at crennick@uwaterloo.ca.
| Proposal Title | Brief Summary of Activity |
|---|---|
|
Sustainability Stakeholder Café for Capstone |
Renewal of the 2024 funding for another year. |
|
Educating Expert Designers in the Loop |
This project develops and implements a set of GenAI-enhanced design workshops that teach undergraduate engineering students to responsibly integrate AI tools into the early phases of the design process. |
|
Campus SWM Living Labs |
To equip students with hands-on practical, theoretical knowledge and build awareness around nature-based solutions for managing stormwater through the analysis and integration of campus-based stormwater management projects. |
Successfully funded projects in 2024
Sustainability Stakeholder Café for Capstone
The Stakeholder Café concept was pioneered in the fall of 2023 with Biomedical Engineering students. The Stakeholder Café connects capstone students with stakeholders from various domains that relate to sustainability. We will recruit stakeholders who have experience with sustainability to meet with students, and help shape the project needs and requirements.
Canadian Engineering Grand Challenges for Interdisciplinary Engineering Capstone Teams
This project is to develop a working "playbook" for 3rd/4th Yr engineering student design teams to research specific problem spaces and through design thinking approaches, they will ideate solution sets (products or services) for a Grand Challenge from the Engineering Deans Canada list of Canadian Engineering Grand Challenges.
Sustainability Tools Development
Recently, multiple tools were offered to students in Systems Design Engineering to use as a support to think about and consider the 3 pillars of sustainability earlier in their design cycle. This project aims to streamline and connect these tools to assist undergraduate students think about sustainability in their design projects.
| Proposal Title | Brief Summary of Activity |
|---|---|
|
Brief Summary of Activity Motion and time study and process optimization |
Students will conduct motion and time studies of a conveyor system in MSCI 131 (Design and Facilities Planning), while fourth year students in MSCI 433 (Applications of Management Engineering) will use the skills they've learned in their program to optimize performance indicators of an accumulation/sorting process. |
|
Integrating Authentic Design into Hands-on Laboratory through Project-Based Laboratory Learning |
Develop real-world, student-centered project-based laboratories (PBL) on three high-impact ChE process technologies: lithium-ion battery, vanadium redox flow battery, and hydrogen-based proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). |
| Bridging the Gap | To help students develop a deep understanding of the behavior of full-scale structures, this proposal will leverage existing data from the pedestrian bridge component of the Living Lab system in Pearl Sullivan Engineering to develop an integrated evaluation of the structure for the Architectural Engineering (AE) and Civil Engineering (CIVE) curricula. |
|
Transforming the Clinical Paradigm for Assessment of Sensorimotor Skills and Cognitive Abilities in Children |
This application proposed an interdisciplinary design workshop activity focused on the real-world challenge of assessing childhood development of sensorimotor and cognitive function. The workshop will assemble small, interdisciplinary teams of undergraduate and graduate students from the faculties of Health and Engineering to collaborate. |
| Proposal 1 | Proposal 2 | Proposal 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Model-based design toolchain for rapid control prototyping with emphasis on automotive systems. | Miniature House facade design | Modular Ultrasound-based Aeroponics Lab |
| Proposal 1 | Proposal 2 | Proposal 3 | Proposal 4 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sensors using capacitance. Details on the pilot offering can be seen here). |
Video game-based control systems labs | Metal casting lab | Entrepreneurial Mindset - Technology assets and IP literacy introduction |