2019 News Archive

UWindsorENG grad inducted into alumni Hall of Fame

Steve Ray

UWindsor Engineering alumnus Steve Ray has been inducted into UWindsor's Alumni Sports Hall of Fame for his outstanding performances in volleyball.

The 34th annual Alumni Sports Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony and Awards Presentation was held Oct. 6.

Following Sunday’s ceremonies, the Hall of Fame now boasts a distinguished membership of 135 inductees, 31 Sport Achievement recipients and 39 Team Achievement recipients.

Engineering prof recognized as leader in energy sustainability

Rupp Carriveau poses in front of windmills

What if electric vehicles are in every Canadian driveway? Solar shingles on every roof? What if you purchase your energy from your neighbour and not your utility?

His work to advance the nation’s energy economy has won a University of Windsor engineering professor recognition as a Canadian leader in sustainability.

Rupp Carriveau was among 50 honourees to receive a Canada Clean50 award during a ceremony on Thursday, Oct. 3, at the Clean50 Summit in Toronto. The awards are distributed annually to thought leaders and advocates and sustainability trailblazers in industry, academia, government.

Dr. Carriveau was chosen after a rigorous selection process conducted by search firm Delta Management from a pool of approximately 750 nominees across Canada.

Engineering prof joins accreditation board

Waguih ElMaraghy Picture

Engineers Canada has appointed Waguih ElMaraghy, UWindsor professor of mechanical, automotive, and materials engineering, as a member-at-large on the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board.

He began a three-year term July 1.

The members of the board are volunteers drawn from academia, the public sector, and private industry, who develop criteria for the accreditation of the country’s undergraduate engineering programs.

Dr. ElMaraghy will attend the next meeting of the board Sept. 13 in St. John’s, N.L.

UWindsor hosts international intelligent transportation conference

international researchers taking a group picture after the event

The Faculty of Engineering welcomed dozens of international researchers to campus July 26 to share the latest innovations in intelligent transportation. 

The 2019 International Conference on Intelligent Transportation and Logistics with Big Data and the Seventh International Forum on Decision Sciences was held July 26 to 29, 2019 with nearly 100 delegates from Canada, China and the Hong Kong region, Colombia, Japan, France, Portugal and the United States.

Experts in intelligent transportation, network optimization, big data, sharing economy, risk management and operations and supply chain management delivered keynote talks and shared their findings during paper presentations.

“The conference proved an excellent platform to exchange ideas and introduce new models,  methods and innovative applications,” says conference chair, Dr. Guoqing Zhang, an industrial engineering professor and director of the Supply Chain and logistics Optimization Research Centre. “Many attendees appreciated the opportunities to engage in in-depth discussions with distinguished researchers.”

Graduating students tackle real-world problems

Jeff Bilek, Larry Sandhu, Aaron Marson and Connor Holowachuk display their fitness-based wearable

More than 100 industry and community members came to the University of Windsor Friday to learn more about student engineering projects that have real-world applications and the potential to advance technology.

The fourth-year capstone projects ranged from fitness-based wearables, autonomous vehicle technologiesand sensor systems for monitoring greenhouses to the optimization of the Chatham Water Pollution Control Plant and building energy retrofitting.

"Our project allowed us to explore a variety of practical solutions to real-world problems,” says Olivia Byrne, whose team placed second in the Water Environment Association of Ontario's annual student design competition for its optimization of the Chatham Water Pollution Control Plant. “Coming up with a competitive solution required intense dedication and organization.”

Hyperloop team puts Windsor on world stage

uWinLoop team member's group picture

Overwhelming support from the community, a shout-out from the prime minister and a chance to pick Elon Musk’s brain has left the uWinLoop team feeling charged and driven to compete again in next year’s SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition.

The team of University of Windsor and St. Clair College students made it to the final round of the international competition, but was not one of the four teams out of 21 to be selected to test its pod due to stringent safety requirements. 

"Our team worked closely with SpaceX engineers leading up to the competition day,” says Solange Rennie, the team’s business lead. “We were provided with advice and guidance in order to continuously improve our pod, which we plan to utilize for next year’s competition.” 

Rocketry students reach new heights in international competition

mechanical engineering students holding their rocket in the hands

A team of mechanical engineering students placed fifth in the world's largest intercollegiate rocket engineering competition.

The Spaceport America Cup attracted 121 teams worldwide to compete June 18 to 22, 2019 in Las Cruces, New Mexico. University of Windsor Rocketry Team member Katarina Berg says the competition has multiple categories based on motor type and either a target altitude of 10,000 or 30,000 feet. The UWindsor team chose to compete in the 30,000 commercial off the shelf motor, solid propulsion category against 19 teams.

“We came in fifth in our category and 31st in the overall competition. Our actual apogee was 26,517 feet,” Berg says. “It was absolutely an amazing experience to be able to connect with and learn from universities all over the world. To see all the different approaches to the same common problem is very intriguing.” 

History Channel seeks out engineering prof for expertise on Windsor Hum

Engineering professor Colin Novak is been filmed by History Channel

A new History Channel show about the world’s most fascinating and inexplicable mysteries featured a University of Windsor engineering professor and his investigation into one of Windsor’s infamous enigmas — the Windsor Hum.

The intermittent rumbling sound has plagued local residents for the past seven years. In 2013, Colin Novak, an associate professor in the mechanical, automotive, and materials engineering department, was contracted by the Government of Canada to lead a study on the source of the hum.

A Los Angeles film crew from UnXplained, a show hosted and produced by William Shatner, visited campus to learn more about Dr. Novak’s Noise Vibration and Harshness-Sound Quality Group, which set up low-frequency noise monitoring stations across the city’s west end and portable infrasound arrays to record noise within the hum’s frequency range.

Students unveil pod ahead of international hyperloop competition

Students unveil pod ahead of international hyperloop competition

A team of University of Windsor and St. Clair College students is heading to California to compete in Elon Musk’s SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition.

The uWinLoop and SCCLoop duo is one of 21 teams worldwide to advance to the finals and compete July 21 in Hawthorne, California, at SpaceX headquarters.

Dozens of supporters gathered in the Ed Lumley Centre for Engineering Innovation Friday, July 5, to send off the team and watch the engineering, business, and marketing students reveal the pod they’ve been working on for more than a year.

“We’re looking forward to putting Windsor against the best on the world stage,” says third-year mechanical engineering student Stefan Sing, uWinLoop’s president and founder.

Professor recognized by national civil engineering society

Dr. Ram Balachandar has been recognized for his “outstanding” contributions

Dr. Ram Balachandar has been recognized for his “outstanding” contributions to the development and practice of hydrotechnical engineering in Canada.

Dr. Balachandar, a civil and environmental engineering professor, received the 2019 Camille A. Dagenais Award during the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering’s (CSCE) annual conference on June 14, in Laval, Quebec.

Balachandar’s research in civil engineering focuses on open channel flows and fluid-structure interaction. His research efforts in the area of scour have led to substantially improved design equations. Balachandar has published 150 journal papers, six book chapters and more than 200 conference papers and is an associate editor for the Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering.