News

A sense of purpose trumped flat-out fun when four mechatronics engineering students finally settled on a project to cap their undergraduate years at the University of Waterloo.

Now they have confirmation it was the right way to go.

John Curticapean, Ben Hudson, Tony Qu and Malcolm Williams took one of six $10,000 prizes this week as student startups pitched their business ideas at the Esch Entrepreneurship Capstone Design Awards competition.

Startups with ties to Waterloo Engineering figured prominently again today with $130,000 in funding up for grabs at the Velocity Fund Finals.

They took three of four $25,000 awards, plus a $10,000 bonus for top hardware company, as well of two of four $5,000 prizes for early stage startups.

A chemical engineering doctoral student took first place as the University of Waterloo hosted its annual Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition this week.

Gregory Lui topped a field of 14 presenters at the Theatre of the Arts with a 180-second explanation of his research on using photocatalysts to convert pollutants in wastewater into electricity.

A team of science and engineering researchers at the University of Waterloo has found that achieving water quality goals for the Gulf of Mexico may take decades.

The results, published today in Science, suggest that policy goals for reducing the size of the northern Gulf of Mexico’s dead zone may be unrealistic, and that major changes in agricultural and river management practices may be necessary to achieve the desired improvements in water quality.

A startup company with deep roots at Waterloo Engineering got noticed in Silicon Valley this week as budding entrepreneurs made pitches to a select audience of investors.

Vena Medical, which began as a Capstone Design project by mechanical engineering students Phil Cooper and Michael Phillips last year, is one of 141 companies from 23 countries at the Y Combinator startup school in Mountain View, California.

Researchers at Waterloo Engineering have developed technology to reliably and affordably increase the efficiency of internal combustion engines by more than 10 per cent.

The product of a decade of research, the patented system for opening and closing valves could significantly reduce fuel consumption in everything from ocean-going ships to compact cars.

Three Waterloo Engineering researchers are among 11 campus-wide to receive Early Researcher Awards worth over $2 million.

Thirty-two teams of high school students with a passion for designing, building and programming robots will be competing at the annual Ontario District University of Waterloo FIRST Robotics Competition this weekend.

Waterloo Engineering has a key role in a new partnership with leading institutes in China to advance research in the areas of connected and autonomous vehicle technology.

The partnership between the University of Waterloo and the Qingdao Academy of Intelligent Industries (QAII) and the State Key Laboratory for Management and Control of Complex Systems (SKL-MCCS) was solidified in an agreement recently signed by all parties.

Farm manure could be a viable source of renewable energy to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.

Engineering researchers at the University of Waterloo are developing technology to produce renewable natural gas from manure so it can be added to the existing energy supply system for heating homes and powering industries.