A nanotechnology engineering undergraduate team won first place at this year’s Ontario Engineering Competition (OEC) in the Innovative Design category.
Hosted by the University of Guelph from January 17 to 19, OEC brought together engineering students from across the province to compete in eight unique challenges designed around the theme of Improve Life.
Fouth-year nanotechnology engineering students Han Liu, Daniel Stranart and Luke Wiersma took top honours for their project, SMRT (an acronym for Simple Method for Recognizing Trauma) Coat, which is also the team’s Capstone Design project.
“We
are
developing
an
affordable,
versatile
coating
that,
upon
impact,
will
visibly
change
colour,”
says
Wiersma.
“We
are
designing
this
around
being
a
spray-on
helmet
coating
to
help
detect
concussions
immediately
after
impact,
as
about
50
per
cent
of
all
concussions
go
either
undetected or
worse,
unreported.”
OEC's Innovation Design first-place winners are from left Luke Wiersma, Han Liu and Daniel Stranart.
They move on to this year’s Canadian Engineering Competition hosted by the University of Manitoba from March 6 to 9.