First here
- Engineering was the first faculty at the University of Waterloo. We are now Canada's largest school of engineering.
Launched here
- Canada's first educational co-op system, now the largest in the world.
Developed here
- The Waterloo Pump began providing a source of clean water for developing countries in 1978. It is still used today.
Created here
- Waterloo's unique inventor-owned intellectual property policy.
Started here
- Engineers Without Borders Waterloo by Parker Mitchell and George Roter, both Waterloo mechanical engineering graduates.
- The first mechatronics engineering program of its kind in Canada. The program integrates mechanical engineering, electronics, control engineering and computer science into the design of computer-controlled electro-mechanical systems.
- Canada's first stand-alone undergraduate nanotechnology program.
Founded here
- Engineering Science Quest in 1990 as a summer camp with the goal of exposing children in Grades 5 and 6 to engineering and science. Now a year-long learning experience, it's regarded as a leader in hands-on engineering, science and technology activities in southwestern Ontario
Established here
- Waterloo Engineering Endowment Fund (WEEF), the first student-run endowment fund of its kind in Canada, now valued at over $10 million.
Designed here
- In 2011 Waterloo Engineering students won the annual Hydrogen Student Design Contest, sponsored in part by the U.S. Department of Energy. It was the fifth award Waterloo has won in the six-year history of the event.
- Master of Business Entrepreneurship and Technology students won all three top spots in the 2011 RBC Next Great Innovator Challenge. Another MBET team, CHAR Technologies took first prize in the 2011 IBK Capital-Ivey Business Competition.
- Waterloo's Nanorobotics Group took top spot in the 2011 International Mobile Microrobotics Challenge in Shanghai - the first Canadian team to achieve this feat.
- The University of Waterloo Alternative Fuels Team won first place at the Challenge X competition held in Detroit in 2005 beating 16 top US universities with its fuel-cell-powered vehicle design
- A team of systems design engineering students brought home a gold medal from Skatebot 2004, a competition for robots on skates held in Calgary.
World record here
- Waterloo's Midnight Sun VII holds the Guinness World Record for the "longest journey by a solar electric vehicle."
Seeded here
- Some of the many companies started by faculty members and alumni include: RIM, Open Text, Teledyne DALSA, Desire2Learn, Maplesoft, Top Hat Monocle, Tribe HR, Clearpath Robotics, Miovision.
Top ranked here
- The Times Higher Education ranked Waterloo Engineering in the Top 50 Engineering and Technology Universities worldwide for 2011-2012.
- Corporate Knights ranked Waterloo Engineering in the top three of the most sustainable engineering programs in Canada.