EngSoc

Innovation and The 4th Year Design Project

Note: This article is hosted here for archival purposes only. It does not necessarily represent the values of the Iron Warrior or Waterloo Engineering Society in the present day.

Looking through people’s windows while walking down the street off campus, perusing the Student Design Center and the Engineering computer labs, it’s become obvious: The Engineering design symposiums are approaching fast. In fact, the 2011 Mechatronics Engineering final year design symposium will be held on Monday, March 21 from 1:00-5:00 pm in the Main Hall of the Davis Centre (DC) Library.

However much ambient stress is floating about in the fourth year student realm, few recognize the tension building up in the 3B student. All too often, 3B students themselves don’t recognize how soon fourth year project proposals are due, and find themselves scrambling at the beginning of 4A. Enter the “4th Year Design Project Ideas Page,” a web page that allows students to list their fourth year ideas, and collaborate with students who have similar interests. It’s like the JobMine for fourth year projects.

There’s often a few really innovative students who have difficulty finding group members interested in their ideas. A lot of the time, people just stick to their previous lab groups. There’s also not a whole lot of collaboration between the different engineering programs, which is a shame. Chances are, that upon graduation and entering the work force, we will have to be able to collaborate with a variety of different engineering types. Kicked off on February 4th by those in the 2012 Mechatronics class, the Project Ideas Page already has a bunch of entries to look through. Hopefully, students will take advantage of this synchronization technique.

Visit the “4th Year Design Project Ideas Page” at: http://www.eng.uwaterloo.ca/~dmikolaj/4thyear/ for further information.

References:

[1] ME 482 Mechatronics Engineering Design Symposium, <http://www.mme.uwaterloo.ca/undergrad/mechatronics/current/ME482_MTE_Guidelines.php>

[2] 4th Year Design Project Ideas, <http://www.eng.uwaterloo.ca/~dmikolaj/4thyear/>

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