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Back in 2004, the Multi-Scale Additive Manufacturing (MSAM) Lab was established in a tiny but valuable 150-square-foot space in the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering. Twenty years later, it is the largest metal additive manufacturing academic research lab in Canada, housing over $25 million in infrastructure and is one of the best university-based research facilities in the world.   

Mechanical and mechatronics engineering professor Dr. Yue Hu is co-leading a project with Dr. Sebastian Fischmeister from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering that will address critical education gaps in the rapidly evolving domain of robotics cybersecurity and have been awarded $1 million in funding from the National Cybersecurity Consortium. Because robot technology moves so fast, many times, it outpaces the development of necessary cybersecurity measures.  

Ceragen was co-founded by Matthew Rose (BASc '21 mechanical and mechatronics engineering), the company's CTO, it develops microbes for soil to help with food production, aid with food security, and advance sustainable agriculture.

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.

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.

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. 

Forcen, a robotics sensing company, has received Pre-A $8.5-million funding round as it scales operations for its prototype production facility to support more customers and to continue developing its research and development for its force sensing technology for robots. 

Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering grads Nima Zamani (BASc '14, MASc' 16) and Dr. Tim Lasswell (BASc '14, MASc '17) introduced Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the Honourable Marci Ien and the Honourable Dan Vandal to Codi™️, an AI-powered robotics system can perform ultrasounds. The team met the officials at Saskatoon's Virtual Health Hub, and the hub will receive $21 million to develop, adopt, and deliver health care services to remote communities, of which the startup that invented the robot, Cobionix, will have its share.  

The startup builds autonomous medical robots that can make health care more accessible, and is based out of Velocity in downtown Kitchener.  

The company aims to offer fully autonomous ultrasounds, where the robot will undertake all parts of the ultrasound procedure without the need for technician supervision across the prairies and eventually across North America.  

Get the full story in Velocity News.