It’s that time of year again when fourth year design projects (FYDP) go on display. Each faculty displays their students FYDP’s in a one day symposium where the soon to be graduating students can present their projects to UW staff, fellow students and members of the media. While not all projects have a functioning prototype they all represent ideas that those students identified as a way to make the world better. Considerable amounts of time, energy and sacrificed sleep have been poured into FYDP’s over the past year as fourth year students researched and built prototypes and came up with innovative solutions to their chosen design problems. Having seen all of these projects I feel it’s safe to say that in the end you can all be proud of the final products presented at the Symposiums and the visions of a better designed world that they represent. Here is an overview of all the symposiums I was able to attend.
Chemical Engineering Symposium
The Chemical Engineering Symposium took place on March 11, 2014 in Engineering 6. Several projects focused on creating off-the-grid energy supplies or optimizing energy systems. These included a system to allow farmers to produce their own bio fuel to run farm vehicles and machinery, optimizing solar farms, and using wind power to create hydrogen reserves to fuel a fleet of hydrogen powered mining vehicles. Optimizing industrial processes was another big area. One group created a way to post process Styrofoam hardness without having to reset the entire process while another group modelled the use of steam to sanitize food processing equipment to ensure adequate sanitization.
Mechatronics Engineering Symposium
Yes, there were robots. But there were also projects that didn’t include robots. On March 14 the Davis Centre (DC) was alive with all sorts of projects from sensors that could track your luggage to robots that could increase the efficiency of moving merchandise into and out of warehouses. My personal favourite was a Search and Rescue robot that was designed to preferentially pick up sound that originated in front of it. This would make it easier to detect calls for help over the calls of rescuers.
Systems Design Engineering
On Monday March 17, 2014 the 4B and 3B System Design Engineering students set up booths in DC for the Systems Design Symposium. The fourth years had the visible (but freezing) spots in the main corridors, while the third years had the slightly warmer spots down the side of the Fish Bowl. The Systems Design Engineering Symposium showcased a variety of projects; from ball collecting robots, to consumer products, to video games, the SYDE’s showed their strengths in both hardware and software. The 3B SYDE’s were not intimidated by the 3 short months they had to think of their problem, design a solution, and actually create a working prototype. They stood tall beside their fourth year counterparts, and many onlookers just assumed they were also eight month long projects. From the fourth year class the overall winner was named “Embedded EMG sensing for workout optimization” and the most entrepreneurial award went to “BoomBlocs,” a set of foldable furniture. The 3B class did not have specific awards but also supported strong projects such as; “Proxima,” “embla,” and “Solder Otter.”
Electrical and Computer Engineering
The Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) symposium begs the question “What can’t be made to relate to ECE?” Projects covered a diverse range of applications from codes to measure and store the precise length of a tape measure to a trash collecting outdoor robot and software to detect incorrect basketball throwing form. Projects improved on a vast array of technologies. The “Spartan Voting System” makes voting at polling stations less easily corrupted while the “Wearable Heart Rhythm Monitor” can detect dangerous heart rhythm deviations and send you a text for early intervention. “Park Sense,” “Keyless Entry” and “3D Scanner” hit close to home as they make student life easier by allowing you to check on the school parking lot before leaving, unlock your house door with your cell phone and scan in a 3D object as a template for 3D printing. All told ECE FYDP projects were really relevant and there were many, many more amazing projects.
Management Engineering
How do you optimize the organizational structure of a company? How do you ensure that emergency room doctors get fairly distributed shifts? Is there an easier way to choose food in a grocery store? Management Engineering FYDPs focused on optimizing processes and bringing in a good dose of psychology to also improve quality of life for all the people involved. One project “NutriFact” involved the development of an app which allows you to scan the bar code of two products and look at a comparison of the nutritional data based on a normalized serving size.
Software Engineering
Software optimization and calibration was a big theme in the Software Engineering Design Symposium on Friday March 21, 2014. Some projects were heavily academic with an eye to research applications. ‘SPIKE: Parallel Brain Simulation’ and “Visualizer for the Nengo Neural Simulator” built on leading edge technology developed at the University of Waterloo to simulate the complete neural networks in the human brain. Other projects were more aimed at the human-computer experience. “Local Search on the Go” was a program that made it easier to find local restaurants and other types of services in your direct vicinity with minimal human – phone interactions. Using GPS the app allows drivers to select the type of service and can then choose from those in their nearest vicinity with as few as two swipes.
Nanotechnology engineering
Nanoparticles may be small, but they can do big things. A roof coating that will turn white in the summer and black in the winter to help with heating homes. Cheaper, more efficient speakers which use crystalline nanocellulose to improve cost. Lighter cold weather wear which uses silver to increase the heat trapped by the body. These were all projects displayed at the March 21, 2014 symposium. Other groups focused on detecting substances on the nano scale including a biosensor that inexpensively detects very low concentrations of chemicals.
At the time this article went to press there remain 3 symposiums. The Environmental and Geological Engineering symposium takes place Thursday March 27, 2014 from 12:30 to 5:00 p.m. in the Optometry building. The Mechanical Engineering Symposium will take place in on Wednesday April 2, 2014 from 3:00- 6:00 PM in the Sedra Student Design Center (E5). Last but not least, the Architecture Symposium will take place in July at the School of Architecture. Best of luck to all of the graduating students, keep being inspired!
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