At some point in their engineering education career at Waterloo, students will be engaged in an engineering design project as part of their curriculum. In this design project, some teams will develop a working proof-of-concept which demonstrates their idea. Some students create design projects that are so marketable and innovative that they actually do make it from proof-of-concept to a real product.
Little do these teams know that engineering competitions exist at the provincial and national level where design project teams can compete with their engineering design projects against other engineering schools to vie for cash prizes and other awards.
It’s called the Innovated Design Category that is part of the Ontario Engineering Competition (OEC) which is being held from February 3-5 at the University of Toronto. According to OEC’s website, “Competitors must design a marketable product or service, or a component of a service that is a significant improvement upon previous designs.”
Teams of 4 set up a “trade show style” booth and present their design to judges at the competition. The team’s goal is to, “show the technical and economic feasibility and demonstrate the design to the judges and the general public.” Based on their design, booth, and oral presentation, judges will determine which teams are the top 3 in the competition to win the large cash prizes which total $7500. First and second place teams at OEC will receive $3500 and $2500 respectively and will also travel to Vancouver in March for the Canadian Engineering Competition (CEC) being held at the University of British Columbia.
The University of Waterloo will be choosing two teams to send to this February’s OEC, so you may be wondering how your design team could secure one of those spots. Interested teams are required to submit a brief (5-6 slide) PowerPoint presentation proposal to Steve Lambert at steve@uwaterloo.ca before Friday, December 16th. This proposal should introduce your team, and include motivation (general problem), a summary of your design approach, verification of feasibility of solution, and the key features of your proposed exhibit. The presentation should emphasize the innovation, benefits to society, and economic viability. To help you understand more about the competition, brush up on the official competition rules at http://oec-cio.ca/node/3.
Leave a Reply