News

Members of Waterloo’s EcoCAR team received $25,000 from corporate sponsor GM Canada on September 21 to help fuel their drive towards the greening of a Chevy Malibu.Fifteen universities across North America are competing in the EcoCAR 2 challenge that spans three years and is intended to produce an environmentally-friendly vehicle people will want to buy and drive. “Cars are around to stay whether we like it or not,’ said Josh Lo, a chemical engineering student. “Reducing pollution and making cleaner cars is always going to be a goal.” 

University of Waterloo research project looking to expand the concept of a “smart grid” beyond electricity is receiving a $10,000 grant from Union Gas to create a fully integrated “smart energy network.” The project being run by the Waterloo Institute of Sustainable Energy is building on work ongoing in Ontario to develop a smart grid for the province’s electricity system, using digital two-way communication to allow utilities to respond instantly to changes in demand and automatically fix power outages, as well as giving consumers more control over how and when they use power.

David Weckman of mechanical and mechatronics engineering has been honoured with the American Welding Society’s 2011 Charles H. Jennings Memorial Award for most valuable paper written by a college student or faculty representative published in the Welding Journal during 2010. It is the second time Weckman has won the award. The paper entitled Double-Sided Arc Welding of AA5182-O Aluminum Sheet for Tailor Welded Blank Applications was co-written by Jeff Moulton, Weckman’s graduate student. The award will be presented in November at the AWS annual awards lunch in Chicago.

David Roulston, an internationally recognized researcher in bipolar semiconductor devices and integrated circuits, who was a faculty member in Waterloo’s electrical engineering department from 1967 to 1996, will be recognized with an honorary doctor of engineering degree at fall convocation on October 22. Roulston will also be the central figure of a “celebration” October 20-22 that will include several social events and a Friday afternoon public lecture.

Tour Bombardier Aerospace and Pratt and Whitney operations. Stand nose-to-nose with the Q400 Series aircraft. Rev up with the PW300 family of engines. Network with Canadian aerospace industry executives. These are a few of the activities planned for the Canadian Student Summit on Aerospace from September 16 to 17 hosted this year by the Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute student branch at Ryerson University. For more information or to register visit: casi.ca

Robert Varin of mechanical and mechatronics engineering has received a Science Technology Transfer Award from the World Association for Innovative Technologies for his Keynote Opening presentation entitled: “Nanomaterials for Solid State Hydrogen Storage-Synthesis and Properties” (co-authors Les Zbroniec and Minchul Jang). The keynote was given at the International Conference for Innovative Technologies IN-TECH 2011, which was held September 1-3 in Bratislava, Slovakia.