A partnership between Ford Motor Company and UWindsor kinesiology professor Joel Cort is employing technology that resembles a contemporary video game to make assembly lines safer for workers—and more efficient.

Dr. Cort’s research team is exploring how 3-D motion capture technology could help reduce the time it takes to create simulations that mimic a worker’s motions during the installation of parts on the assembly line.

Once initial analysis of the technology is complete, workers at Ford’s Windsor and Oakville assembly plants will be outfitted with motion capture suits. As the employees work, the suit will record their movements, creating data which can then be rapidly transferred into the game-like human simulation software.

The project will give Ford a near-complete picture of the tasks at each station on the factory floor, enabling more rapid and accurate ergonomic analysis. The company’s industrial engineers can then use the information to redesign stations when necessary and optimize for efficiencies, right down to placing the last screw.

Read the full story, Video game tech brings auto assembly into the 21st century, on the website of Mitacs, which supported the project through its Accelerate program.

A teepee in the Campus Community Garden is the setting for an evening of poetry from all over the world tonight—Monday, October 3.

The event, entitled “The alchemy machine: poetry global,” is also open to spoken word performance, readings of prose or the work of a favourite author, says organizer Richard Douglass-Chin, a professor in the Department of English Language, Literature, and Creative Writing.

Attendees are invited to help set up the teepee starting at 6:30 p.m. in the garden at 380 California Avenue. The formal program will begin at 7 p.m. In the event of inclement weather, the event will relocate to the Turtle Island Aboriginal Education Centre, room 179 in the CAW Student Centre.

Besides Turtle Island and the English department, it is sponsored by the International Student Centre and Women’s and Gender Studies.

Now that the rush of September is behind us, provost Douglas Kneale is re-activating his Question of the Month contest, asking students, staff, and faculty to respond to a question about their UWindsor experiences. The author of the winning entry will receive a UWindsor hoodie.

Over the last couple of weeks, the University has been unveiling a new awareness campaign about the University of Windsor, communicating something that a lot of people on campus identify as a core characteristic of our students, staff, and faculty: Promise.

So Dr. Kneale is asking you to relate that to your own experiences at the U. This month’s question is: What does “promise” mean to you?

Please send your response, for a chance at that amazing UWindsor hoodie, to vpacademic@uwindsor.ca before October 31.

Tickets are now on sale for the 2016 Annual Retirees’ Dinner and Reunion, Thursday, November 3, in Ambassador Auditorium.

The following retirees will be recognized at this year’s dinner:

• Helen Allen, Residence Services
• Palaniappan Andiappan, Odette School of Business
• Linda Barson, Faculty of Human Kinetics
• Jane Blackshaw, Kinesiology
• Robert Bond, Facility Services
• Monika Burgess, Human Resources
• Laurie Carty, Faculty of Nursing
• Erik Clausen, Technical Support Centre
• James Coyle, School of Social Work
• Doug Decker, Information Technology Services
• Diane Doyle, International Student Centre
• Brian Etherington, Faculty of Law
• Patricia Fantin, Human Resources
• Linda Feldman, Languages, Literatures and Cultures
• Richard Frost, School of Computer Science
• Cathy Georges, School of Creative Arts
• John Gibbs, Human Resources
• Erdal Gunay, Odette School of Business
• Kathleen Harvie, St. Denis Centre
• Ann-Marie Hranka, Student Affairs and Dean of Students
• Fay Kennedy, Leddy Library
• Antonios Khoury, Languages, Literatures and Cultures
• W. Andy Kozak, Information Technology Services
• Dietmar Lage, Languages, Literatures and Cultures
• Judy Lariviere, Information Technology Services
• Peter Lukasewych, Leddy Library
• Renee Malette, Finance
• Richard Mallat, St. Denis Centre
• Stephanie McMahon, Finance
• Brian Owens, Leddy Library
• Kevin Peifer, Center for Teaching and Learning
• Rosalyn Power, Human Resources
• Patricia Prieur, Leddy Library
• Nina Russell, Office of the Registrar
• Patrick Seguin, Mechanical, Automotive and Materials Engineering
• Janis Shepley, Student Awards and Financial Aid
• Maher Sid-Ahmed, Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Margaret Smole, Office of the Registrar
• Dennis Soanes, Facility Services
• Graham Staffen, Leddy Library
• Cheryl Taggart, School of Social Work
• Bernie Warren, School of Dramatic Art
• Larry Wilson, Faculty of Law
• Lucia Yiu, Faculty of Nursing

Tickets are $30 per person. Faculties and departments are invited to wish their colleagues bon voyage by sponsoring one or more tables at the dinner at a cost of $150 per table. These generous donors will be acknowledged in the program and with a display on the sponsored table.

To purchase tickets or sponsor a table, please contact special events manager Mary-Ann Rennie at mrennie@uwindsor.ca or 519-253-3000, ext. 7059.

There are several advantages to sourcing the purchase of promotional items through the Campus Bookstore, says general merchandise buyer Lynda Leckie—and the campus connection tops her list.

“When you make a purchase at the Campus Bookstore, the money stays on campus and supports UWindsor initiatives compared to when you buy off-campus, the profit remains with the outside vendor,” she says.

Leckie has developed a network of contacts—supporting Canadian-made and local businesses as much as possible—that can help when departments, conferences, student clubs, awareness campaigns need to get a message out.

“Absolutely anything can be ordered,” she says. “Swag, giftware, apparel—we can have it imprinted or embroidered and I will get the best pricing available.”

She points out that students and faculty are entitled to educational pricing for items from Apple or Microsoft, and departmental purchases made on a UWindsor account do not pay taxes: “That’s a huge savings right there.”

To learn more or obtain a quote, contact Leckie at lleckie@uwindsor.ca or 519-253-3000, ext. 3220.

Chancellor Ed Lumley and president Alan Wildeman sport silk UWindsor ties from the Campus Bookstore.