Students in seven University of Waterloo engineering programs, including the first graduating class of management engineering, will display inventive design projects during Engineering Design Symposium Week beginning tomorrow.
Approximately 750 senior engineering students will present more than 150 design projects, posters and prototypes to the public, industry guests, alumni and the academic community. In the past, design projects such as BufferBox, a self-service parcel delivery kiosk with 24-hour a day access, have led to the successful startup of local companies.
"Engineering Design Symposium Week provides an excellent opportunity to view first-hand our senior engineering students’ design projects that push the boundaries of innovation,” said Adel Sedra, dean of the Faculty of Engineering. “As in the past, we expect some of the projects on display will lead to new start-up companies and the commercialization of new products and services.”
All events will be held at the William G. Davis Computer Research Centre, located on the main University of Waterloo campus. Visitors are encouraged to browse the interactive displays and discuss the projects with the students.
* Friday, March 16 from 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Students graduating from systems design engineering will exhibit projects in the areas of human and biomedical engineering, mechatronics, financial, and environmental systems.
* Monday, March 19 from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Students graduating from mechatronics engineering will present projects in the areas of autonomous systems, medical systems, mechatronics sports systems, automotive systems, and reconfigurable service systems.
* Wednesday, March 21 from 9:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Students graduating from electrical and computer engineering will showcase their design projects in the areas of audio/ video processing, energy and power, robotics, tracking, software, and entertainment.
* Friday, March 23 from 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Students graduating from the inaugural management engineering class, from nanotechnology engineering, and software engineering will demonstrate innovative projects in the areas of software systems for mobile devices, desktop computers, embedded systems, cloud computing, logistics, financial systems, nanofluidics and nanobiotechnology, nanophotonics and electronics, and nanofunctional materials.
Among the projects to be featured are the following:
Virtual Reality Simulator for Behavioral Analysis in Traffic Situations - Systems design engineering symposium
This design project demonstrates a virtual reality system that can be used to study child and adult pedestrian behaviors in complex traffic situations without putting participants at risk. The system allows researchers to simulate complex traffic environments, and to track and record data about participant responses to traffic situations.
One Touch Tow System - Mechatronics engineering design symposium
This design project presents a complete, end-to-end system that allows tow truck drivers to safely tow disabled vehicles from within the cabin of their tow truck. Since there is no need for the driver to exit the tow truck, the possibility of serious injury from passing vehicles is reduced. The One Touch Tow System has the potential to revolutionize the automobile towing industry.
Muscle Activation Detection Gear - Electrical and computer engineering design symposium
Two common problems related to exercise training are the improper use of equipment and balancing muscle exertion. This design project focuses on the design of an article of clothing allowing the user to know exactly which muscles are being used and their duration of activity during exercise. Electromyography (EMG) sensors embedded into the clothing article measure the activation of key muscle groups. This project received the Technical Excellence Award at the 2012 Ontario Engineering Competition.
Information Resource Allocation and Scheduling Application (iRASA) - Management engineering design symposium
Scheduling hospital operating rooms to minimize patient wait times is a government-mandated objective facing hospitals nationwide. While scheduling priority surgeries to occur more often seems like a simple task over the long-term, balancing the impact these surgeries have on hospital resources over the short-term is not. This design project presents a software package (iRASA) that solves the operating room scheduling problem by minimizing wait times while satisfying constraints of inpatient bed occupancy requirements and limited surgical resources.
High Strength Adhesive Inspired by Geckos - Nanotechnology engineering design symposium
This design project presents a high-strength adhesive, loosely based on the structure of Gecko feet. The adhesive, which is completely removable and it does not leave a residue, will be demonstrated at the symposium.
Whyness - Software engineering design symposium
This design project demonstrates a software compiler that synthesizes imperative Java code from relational logic specifications written in a subset of the Alloy modelling language. The subset of Alloy is called navigable expressions, and is sufficient to describe the computation to be performed by most data structure iterators. The compiler incorporates a number of optimizations that make the performance of the synthesized code similar to that of code hand-written by experts. Using this compiler, software designs can be reliably and rapidly developed.
Waterloo Engineering acknowledges the sponsorship of Infusion Development, AMD, Qualcomm Incorporated, Maplesoft, and the ASME in recognition of the achievements of our senior undergraduate students.
About Waterloo Engineering
The faculty of engineering at the University of Waterloo is a multi-faceted engineering school with eight academic units, home to about 280 faculty members, more than 1,825 graduate students and 6,550 undergraduate students. More than 34,500 alumni have made their mark in industry, academe and the public sector, in Canada and around the world. For further information, go to www.engineering.uwaterloo.ca.
