Waterloo engineering once again had a strong showing at the Ontario Engineering Competition (OEC) this year, held at Western on February 4th-7th. Waterloo had a team place in the top 3 in 4 out of the 5 categories in which Waterloo was entered. Of those 4 categories, 2 of the finishes were in the top 2 and those competitors will advance to the Canadian Engineering Competition (CEC) to be held in March in Montreal.
The theme for the competition, ‘Engineering a Better World’, promoted the principle of Engineers Without Borders, with many of the competition being based on fictitious scenarios in countries from around the world.
In the Junior design category, competitors were tasked to design and build a waterproof and wind-proof shelter which could be raised in “one touch” operation. Waterloo’s ‘A’ junior design team, represented by Adam Thagard, Kornel Niedziela, Marc-Andre Simard, and Shari King, designed a structure which popped up two sides to resemble a house like structure. Their solid design methodology and superb presentation propelled them to a 2nd place finish.
Erin Matheson’s presentation on “Categorizing Natural Organic Matter Using Fluorescence Spectroscopy” earned her a 2nd place win in the engineering communications category despite being a few minutes under the minimum time, causing a time penalty to be leveled against her. In addition to the 2nd place win, she picked up the “Technical Excellence” award which comes as no surprise after one judge commented on her presentation as “too technical for this competition”.
In the consulting category, teams had to develop a sanitation solution for residents of Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia in order to help advance the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goal to halve the number of people without access to basic sanitation by 2015. The third place winning team from Waterloo, consisting of Adriana Cameron, Ian Davies, Trevor Jenkins, and Will Zochodne, proposed a community-based solution which included the implementation of composting toilets.
The senior design category had an interesting design challenge which included delivering supplies up a rocky incline, rectifying AC voltage to DC and titrating acid-tainted water for a simulated earthquake-stricken town in Chile. Competition was fierce and the challenge difficult to complete with non-ideal materials. Unfortunately, both Waterloo’s senior design teams were not able to place in the top 3. Although Waterloo did not place, Conestoga College, competing at their first OEC after recent accreditation, placed 1st and is off to CEC this March.
In parliamentary debate, our sole Waterloo team, consisting of Alex Hogeveen Rutter and Chanakya Gupta, qualified for the semi finals and eventually tied for third place after being defeated by the University of Toronto team.
Once again, congratulations to all placing OEC and CEC qualifying teams. If you wish to compete in the future, look out for the next Waterloo Engineering Competition (WEC) qualifier happening this spring.
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