Engineering Now .: Volume 4 - Edition 5 .: February 2008
Western Engineering students impress judges at Ontario Engineering Competition
Western Engineering was represented exceptionally well by 16 students who traveled to MacMaster University for the Ontario Engineering Competition (OEC), February 8 – 10.
The competitors had success in all categories, with some teams coming away with top level prizes.
Shaunvir Sidhu and Bessam Mustafa received "The Silver Tongue Award"
for placing first in the parliamentary debate category. This event challenges competitors to form compelling arguments about a topic and to counter arguments made by their opponents. Teams are given minimal time to prepare for each debate.
They competed through 4 rounds of debate, before defeating the University of Waterloo in the final round. Mr. Mustafa and Mr. Sidhu had a perfect six wins and no losses over the course of the competition.
Caitlin Henderson-Toth, James Cunningham, Chris Gillis, and Jonathan Pietrobon placed first in the prestigious senior design category. In this category, third and fourth year students must solve an engineering problem that is revealed to them only on the day of the competition.
The WE team was tasked with designing a system for sorting simulated waste. This had to be semi-autonomous and had to count the number of items being processed through the system. This problem was complicated by the fact that the team had only eight hours to complete the prototype and prepare a presentation on how their system worked. The senior design category allows Western Engineering students to apply skills gained through design courses such as ES-050.
Jonathan McLeod, a first year engineering student, received a Social Awareness Award in Innovative Design for his project on minimally invasive heart valve surgery. The judges felt that Jonathan's project had very strong technical merits, and would develop into a system to benefit society. This category is typically for grad students or final year projects, so this is a special accomplishment for Jonathan.
Western will be sending the senior design team (composed of Chris Gillis, Caitlin Henderson-Toth, James Cunningham and Jonathan Pietrobon) and debate team (composed of Bessam Mustafa and Shaunvir Sidhu) to compete at the Canadian Engineering Competition at the University of Waterloo. The competition will take place March 6 - 9, 2008.
Congratulations to all the competitors for a job well done, and good luck at the Canadian Engineering Competition!
Also from this web page:
Contact
.: Becky Blue
Spencer Engineering Building, Room 2074
Telephone: (519) 850-2917 Fax: (519) 661-3808
contactwe@eng.uwo.ca
