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Nothing taught Jacob John more about practising the profession of engineering than watching a plane crash.

The fourth-year mechanical engineering major is part of the UWindsor SAE Aero team, which competes in the Society of Automotive Engineers’ student aeronautic design contest. John and his teammates watched as their model plane fell out of the sky in the second phase of the competition.

“The vibrations shook loose a servo arm screw and we lost elevator control,” says John. “After that, we were helpless.”

Michael Ala got a head start on his engineering career Wednesday.

A recent graduate of Central Public School heading to Massey Secondary this fall, he toured an open house displaying the capstone projects of fourth-year students in electrical and computer engineering—and came away impressed.

“I have always had an interest in this aspect of engineering,” he said. “Today was really educational and enjoyable.”

Editor’s note: This is one in a series of articles about students involved in cool research, scholarly and creative activities during their summer break from classes.

Lisa Isabella-Valenzi has plenty of fond childhood memories of fishing with her father, so she is pleased to spend most of her summer studying ways to get rid of invasive species that are robbing many area anglers of their favourite pastime.

Imagine a device that alerted blind people they are about to walk into an obstacle, or that could tell identify for them approaching individuals. A group of UWindsor engineering students is working to turn this science fiction into reality.

The group designed a belt that vibrates to indicate to wearers the location of an obstacle nearby. It also incorporates a camera and an existing face recognition program to identify people and whisper their names to the user.