News

On June 26th, it was announced that four groups of students and two teams were winners of the Society for Manufacturing Engineers (SME) Digital Manufacturing Challenge. Dr. Mihaela Vlasea, a professor of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, supervised the students in collaboration with PhD student Daniel Juhasz, who specifically advised the undergraduate team.

Three outstanding graduating students have won the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering (CSME) Gold Medal. This award recognizes students who have achieved outstanding academic achievement. We were pleased to honour this award to Matthew Krmpotic on the undergraduate level, Kyra Wanuch on the master’s level, and Run Ze Gao on the doctoral level.  Keep reading to find out what some of our newly-minted alumni had to say about their award win.

If you could live on the moon, would you? A group of Waterloo researchers in the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering has set out to help make that a reality by processing raw materials on the moon to power the area as a hub for manufacturing, construction, and human life.

Kitchener-Waterloo software startup IntelliCulture has certainly been putting the pedal to the metal over the last few years. They’ve been pushing their expansion to the United States after seeing much success in Canada.

Artemis Data, co-founded by William Shi (BASc ’23, mechatronics engineering), has raised 2 million in pre-seed funding to make data cleaning 50 times faster than traditional methods.

Professor Michael Worswick received the Market Development Industry Leadership Award from the American Iron and Steel Institute at their Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., for making significant contributions to the competitive use of advanced and ultra-high-strength steel in the automotive market. 

Alumni startups represented the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering well in the most recent round of companies that received seed funding from being part of Y Combinator (YC), one of the most prestigious startup accelerators in the world. Every year, YC hosts a program that is split into two cohorts in the winter and spring. The successful candidates receive $500,000 in seed funding along with other resources to help startups on their journey. The program is highly competitive, with only 260 companies selected out of 27,000 in the latest cohort. 

Nfinite, a nanotechnology startup led by MME alums Chee Hau Teoh (MASc '20), Jhi Yong Loke (MASc '21), and MME professor Dr. Kevin Musselman, have developed an ultra-thin, flexible, clear, and sustainable alternative for food packaging that can be recycled. Current food packaging is not very recyclable. Nfinite Nanotech is using its funding round to commercialize a new coating for cardboard and paper to help provide a sustainable alternative to current food packaging that can’t be recycled or composted. 

Team Collaborative Deliciousness, led by Dr. Yue Hu and composed of team members Jeffery Lee (MASc in progress, mechatronics) and Cheng Tang, an undergraduate student in computer engineering, was selected as one of three finalists in the prestigious international competition for the KUKA Innovation Award at Hannover Messe, one of the world's largest industrial trade fairs. This year's theme was "Robots for the People."   

Three students, including a master’s student from mechatronics engineering, have been awarded $17,000 after winning ClimateHack.AI, an international competition that focuses on machine learning in climate solutions.