Don Tu here with another fantastic update! The past two weeks have been relatively quiet for me in terms of Engineering Society business. The Sponsorship Committee and I managed to secure ratification for this term’s sponsorship allocations last Wednesday, but other than that, I don’t have a lot of events to bring to you from the recent past. However, I have recently found myself thinking deeply about both my own future and that of the Engineering Society. So, why don’t we talk about that?
On November 12, the University of Waterloo proudly broke ground for the newest addition to the family of Engineering buildings: Engineering 7. (Incidentally, it was my birthday – what a fortuitous occasion!) Along with a massive amount of dedicated teaching space for students of numerous departments, E7 will also be the future home of RidgidWare, the Engineering Society’s electronics component shop.
If you are currently familiar with RidgidWare, you’ll know that it is open on Mondays and Fridays in the CPH foyer. More importantly, it is currently located in a closet in the CPH foyer. It’s not a very glamorous or illustrious set-up right now, and the Society is definitely excited to move the operation into E7 as soon as possible. However, E7 is slated to be ready for 2018, which means almost three more years of operating out of a closet.
Furthermore, I will admit that RidgidWare has not been very high up on my list of priorities this term. Although I have a team of four fantastic directors, I have not established any main directives, initiatives, or goals for RidgidWare as a service. Because of that, I feel as though the shop has simply been languishing for the better part of the term.
Although there’s not a lot of time left in the term to do anything very big, I would like to create some more definitive plans for RidgidWare over the Winter co-op. However, I am a chemical engineer with very little in the way of knowledge of DIY electronics. In light of this, I would like you to think of this rambling article in one concise sentence:
What should RidgidWare be?
We’re working on restocking the shelves, but other than that, I am at a bit of a loss. Should we stick to simply selling the components that we have? Should we expand our inventory? Should we move from strictly inventory into a position where we offer services, like workshops? I would love to hear your ideas.
Let me know what you think! As always, you can reach me at vpfinance.b@uwaterloo.ca. I hope you got something out of this rant!
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