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Education - Engineering
Top engineering students compete at university of Waterloo this Weekend
Waterloo - Canada’s “most innovative and creative” engineering students will be at UW this weekend, say organizers of the 24th annual Canadian Engineering Competition, which involves competitions Friday and Saturday in the six categories of consulting engineering, engineering communication, extemporaneous debate, innovative design, team design and senior team design.
“This prestigious national competition,” a news release explains, “invites winners from the four regional competitions held across Canada.” That would include the Ontario Engineering Competition, which was held at McMaster University last month. A team of four UW mechanical and mechatronics engineering students — Andrew Zwart, Matthew Rendall, Kenneth Lee and Simon Lancaster-Larocque — came home from that event with first place for innovative design, and will be competing at the CEC this weekend.
“Competitors,” says the news release, “are forced to develop innovative solutions which are mindful of social, economic and environmental factors. All the while, these designs make use of the engineering techniques learned in the classroom.”
About 150 participants are expected. Competition is based at the Waterloo Inn on Friday and in UW’s Davis Centre on Saturday. “The days,” says the release, “are filled with competition and recruitment events while the evenings have social activities that allow some of the brightest engineering students in the country to network and relax after a hard day of competing.
“This year’s theme, Designing Global Change, emphasizes that design is a proactive process: it is only by taking action that we can truly make change happen.”
With this year’s event, the CEC is making its first return visit to the campus where it began in 1985. “Throughout its history,” organizers say, “the event has provided a unique opportunity for students to demonstrate their range of professional and industry-based engineering skills. CEC continues to challenge Canada’s best engineering undergraduate students in a competitive environment, and simultaneously unites undergraduates with Canadian industry, government, and academia.”
The CEC is a division of the Canadian Federation of Engineering Students, an association of approximately 55,000 Canadian undergraduate students, including the members of UW’s Engineering Society.
This year’s CEC will be a carbon neutral event, organizers promise: “CEC is working with sponsor Loop Initiatives on the plan to make the competition more environmentally and socially sustainable.”
Says Kelly Henderson, a fourth-year civil engineering student who’s serving as vice-president (finance) for the competition: “We are really excited to expose 160 of the most innovative and creative engineering students in Canada to the serious environmental challenges we face, and the latest techniques to mitigate them. We are walking the walk of our theme, ‘Designing Global Change’, by making the competition environmentally and socially sustainable. We will be addressing both these topics throughout the competition.”
The competition will be carbon neutral by reducing consumption and waste, by sourcing products that are environmentally and socially responsible, and by offsetting any emissions which were not mitigated, organizers explain. “The organizing committee has partnered with a sustainable business consulting firm, Loop Initiatives, who are completing the carbon accounting for the event and recommending responsible offsetting practices. The organizing team has been working with the University of Waterloo, Waterloo Inn and other parties at every stage of the planning.”
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