Information for starting a team

A student team is nothing more than a group of students who decide to work together on a single project with a common objective. There is no official stamp of approval or registration forms required – all you need is a dedicated group of students and a goal to work towards.

When it comes to accessing space and resources in the Sedra Student Design Centre, there are no registration forms or waiting lists – instead if new student teams want access to the Sedra Student Design Centre space, it can be granted through personal communication with the Director, Peter Teertstra. During an initial interview, teams that fulfil the requirements for an "engineering-based" team (see below) will be asked to discuss their success factors (also see below). Depending on the team’s stage of development, they may receive immediate access, limited access, or mentorship and follow-up meetings as they grow their team.

In order to be considered an official team of the Sedra Student Design Centre, teams must meet the following requirements:

• The majority of team members should be Faculty of Engineering students. This does not include students from other faculties or institutions involved in sub-groups that support the activities of the team, for example, a business and marketing group, or an outreach sub-team.

• The team must have an academic adviser from Waterloo’s Faculty of Engineering. The adviser may be either a staff or faculty member who agrees to take an active role in supervising and communicating with the team and team leaders.

• The team must be actively working on a project that incorporates engineering principles in its objectives.

• The primary objective of the team is to enter its project in an engineering-based competition. However, depending on circumstances, the team may also devote some of its resources to research or long-term objectives.

There are 3 “success factors” that are essential to student team growth, and are evident in all the successful teams that are part of the Sedra Centre.

• Have a clear objective. 
  Most of the time, a student team’s objective is to attend (and win) a competition – this defines the actions of the team, helps them set a budget, create a time schedule, etc. If a competition isn’t your objective, you will need to demonstrate goals for your team that are as challenging and change year-by-year. This is the big difference between a team and a club – and clubs aren’t part of the Sedra Student Design Centre.

• Demonstrated success in setting a budget and in securing ongoing, stable sponsorship.
  The typically annual expenditure for a student team is between $10,000 and $20,000, which includes materials, construction costs, and competition expenses such as travel and lodging. Although we don’t expect you to have all the money in hand, having a reasonable budget and some preliminary contact with potential sponsors is expected.

• Have stable membership through recruitment.
  Recruitment is one of the biggest challenges faced by all of our teams, particularly with uWaterloo’s co-op system. It is expected that your team will have a plan to continue working in both streams, and demonstrated success in recruiting new people to your team to ensure stable membership.

Absolutely! 
The main purpose of the Sedra Student Design Centre is to support new student teams, whether they are in move-in condition or just starting out. We are happy to meet with you, talk about your ideas, provide guidance and help where we can, and (eventually, hopefully) make you part of the Sedra Student Design Centre.