Student Innovation on Display at the 6th Annual Mechatronics Capstone Design Symposium

Friday, March 14, 2014

The Mechatronics Design Symposium is one of ten Capstone Design symposiums presented by Waterloo Engineering this month. 

Cyculus - Virtual Reality Mountain Biking
capstone: entrepreneurial by design

From virtual reality mountain biking to concussion monitoring systems and medical devices, to CaseSensitive™ Smart Luggage tracking, Waterloo Mechatronics students are again raising the bar on the introduction of new smart technologies.  
 
Mechatronics Capstone Design Symposium
On Friday March 14 in the Davis G. Davis Computer Research Centre on 
the University of Waterloo campus, students presented a total of 30 projects, some of which will compete for $60,000 in prize funding awarded by the Esch Foundation at a pitch competition on April 4.
Mechatronics, introduced by Waterloo Engineering in 2003, is renowned for producing entrepreneurially minded engineers like Stephen Lake and co-founders Aaron Grant and Matt Bailey of Thalmic Labs, creators of the Myo armband; Matt Rendall, CEO of Clearpath Robotics; and Eric Migicovsky, creator of the Pebble smartwatch. Migicovsky was named one of Forbes Top 30 under 30 entrepreneurs in January 2014. 
Pulse Smart Punching Bag
Other projects presented at today’s Mechatronics Symposium include the Pulse Smart Punching Bag – helping people learn the basics of martial arts, ARES swarm drone – an autonomous swarm surveillance system, Liftrax – an automated weightlifting system, RATAR – Rescuer Assistance Through Autonomous Robots and HEDD –  a Hydrocarbon Emissions Detection Device. 
At next week's Capstone design symposiums students will present their projects in system design engineering, civil engineering, software engineering, mechanical engineering, management engineering, electrical and computer engineering, environmental and geological engineering, nanotechnology and management sciences.