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Engineering students advance to finals in international hyperloop competition

Mar 13th, 2019

Hyperloop Team Picture

University of Windsor and St. Clair College students have joined forces to compete against schools worldwide in a competition that encourages the development of a high-speed technology that has the potential to revolutionize mass transit.

They are one of three Canadian teams to advance to the final round of SpaceX’s Hyperloop Pod Competition and one of 21 worldwide that will compete this summer in Hawthorne, California at SpaceX headquarters — a rocket and spacecraft company spearheaded by Elon Musk. The Windsor students will test their pods alongside prestigious institutions including Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Purdue University and the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

The group’s initial design work has helped them advance to the final round. After spending more than a year designing the pod and running calculations, simulations and modelling, uWinLoop turned to students from St. Clair College to assist with manufacturing. 

“With their extensive manufacturing resources, we will be able to manufacture the pod faster, which will give us more time to test and iterate on designs to be competitive and win in California,” says Stefan Sing, uWinLoop’s president and founder who’s in his third year of mechanical engineering.

UWindsor researchers to study feasibility of solar-powered greenhouses

Mar 11th, 2019

Dr. Rupp Carriveau (L) and Lucas Semple (R) are pictured at an Under Sun Acres greenhouse.

University of Windsor researchers have teamed with local produce growers to improve greenhouse energy efficiency and decrease operating costs.

The two-year project led by Dr. Rupp Carriveau, director of UWindsor’s Environmental Energy Institute and co-director of the Turbulence and Energy Lab, is examining the technical and economic feasibility of a solar energy system designed to reduce dependency on carbon-based fuels for heating and grid connected power for electricity. 

“We're focusing on energy from the sun,” says Dr. Carriveau, who is working on the project with UWindsor’s Dr. David Ting, co-director of the Turbulence and Energy Laboratory. “The advantage here is that we can offset some of the dependence on natural gas, which of course we know has a carbon footprint and has a notable water footprint as well.”

Engineering faculty and students recognized for research excellence

Mar 8th, 2019

Dr. Jill Urbanic receives an award in the category of Mid-Career Scholars/Researchers

The University of Windsor recognized the accomplishments of more than a dozen engineering faculty and students at the school’s annual Celebration of Excellence in Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity.

The awards ceremony, held March 7 at Alumni Auditorium in the CAW Student Centre, recognized scholars and researchers university-wide in all stages of their careers.

“Today’s celebration is the sign of a thriving academic community, where people are flourishing in their research, scholarship and creativity, and receiving recognition and support for the extraordinary work they do,” said interim president Douglas Kneale.

“What is so impressive is our collective bench strength in research and scholarship. We have outstanding students, emerging scholars, and established researchers, singular efforts and large collaborative projects, local, provincial, national, and international honours and success across all disciplines.”

UWindsor engineering professor to lead Canadian electrical engineering cluster

Jan 18th, 2019

Dr. Mohammed Khalid, pictured centre with members of the IEEE Windsor Section.

Dr. Mohammed Khalid, an electrical engineering professor, has been elected to the executive committee of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Canada. 

IEEE is the world's largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. It has more than 400,000 members worldwide, including more than 16,000 in Canada. IEEE membership offers access to technical innovation, cutting-edge information and networking opportunities. 

Auto show exhibit puts UWindsorENG on world stage

Jan 18th, 2019

Engineering students in the Auto show exhibit

Upstairs at the North American International Auto Show is this year’s array of new cars being unveiled by automakers, but the lower level was where the wizardry behind them begins.

Researchers from UWindsor Engineering’s Centre for Hybrid Automotive Research and Green Energy — CHARGE, for short — were among the exhibitors on the lower level of Cobo Center, displaying a prototype of an electric motor created in collaboration with Ford Motor Company of Canada.

CHARGE Labs researchers also brought along a controller that runs an electric motor, and information on the independent, third-party testing they can provide manufacturers developing their own electric vehicles.

“We are here to showcase the contributions we are making as a university with this lab,” said Narayan Kar, director of CHARGE Labs and a professor with expertise in electrified transportation systems. “We are creating knowledge and experts for the future…. That’s what we’d like to demonstrate to the outside world.”

UWindsor's first Hyperloop team advances in international competition

Jan 10th, 2019

Hyperloop team

UWindsor’s Hyperloop team is one of 52 teams worldwide to advance in a competition that encourages innovations in high-speed transportation.

The team formed in 2017 and hasn’t stopped working towards its goal of creating an electrically powered linear induction motor to propel a levitating pod through a sealed tube at speeds over 500 km/h. The group’s initial design work has helped them advance in SpaceX’s Hyperloop Pod Competition.

“We’re very dedicated to this,” says Stefan Sing, the team lead and founder who’s in his third year of mechanical engineering. “We’ve invested heavily in the linear induction motor and haven’t stopped making revisions. The team has been doing a stellar job.”

The team of 25 meets five times a week and ranges from undergraduate to graduate students studying mechanical, electrical and industrial engineering, and computer science. 

Tiny technology. Giant applications.

Dec 7th, 2018

Dr. Arezoo Emadi and Jenitha Balasingam working in Electrical Micro & Nano Devices and Sensors.

What if family doctors had access to low-cost, handheld scanners or biosensors that could detect cancer at an early stage? What if they could monitor a patient’s heart activity through a wearable device and detect early signs of cardiovascular disease? How about a sensor that could prevent intoxicated drivers from operating vehicles or a navigation system that could aid the visually impaired indoors?

Researchers at the University of Windsor hope to advance these technologies and more in Windsor’s first state-of-the-art microfabrication facility. The high-tech clean room will be specially designed to facilitate multidisciplinary micro- and nano-scale research by controlling air pollutant levels, pressurization, temperature and humidity. It’s slated to open in 2019 in the Ed Lumley Centre for Engineering Innovation.

“This fabrication facility will provide us with an ideal incubator for academia and industry to foster collaborative research and commercialization of advanced sensors, thus increasing our leadership in the emerging area of the micro nano sensor industry — an area which is rapidly growing,” says Dr. Jalal Ahamed, an assistant mechanical engineering professor who designs and fabricates micro- and nano-systems for a variety of applications, including healthcare, automotive, aerospace and manufacturing.

The humanitarian engineer

Dec 7th, 2018

Dr. Becker BASc ’67 posing in CEI

Norm Becker’s contribution to the engineering profession is incomparable. Dr. Nihar Biswas, UWindsor environmental engineering professor, says that not only did Becker mentor him, he’s inspired hundreds of UWindsor engineering students.

“Norm is a true role model who instills confidence and integrity in our students and, while succeeding in the engineering profession, has given back so much to the community,” Dr. Biswas says about the University of Windsor alumnus who’s spent his 51-year career working on complex engineering projects across North America, the Middle East, Africa, South America, the Caribbean and China.

Although Dr. Becker P.Eng. BASc ’67, PhD ’70 has worked all over the globe, he always maintained a close relationship with UWindsor. He even brought — and sometimes paid the cost out of his own pocket — engineering students with him on his pro bono projects across the country and in rural China.

For more than three years, Becker recruited engineers, students and trades people to design and plan water filtration systems for villages in the Chinese province of Shandong. While there, Becker and his team of volunteers took time to rebuild a fire-damaged medical clinic that sat unused for more than a year.

“Every school-aged child in the village inspected our work daily and charmed us with their smiles,” says Becker. “I think a few of them may aspire to become engineers themselves.”

Mentoring alumnus lives on through memorial scholarship

Dec 7th, 2018

Shawn at the Automotive Research and Development Centre

When Charlene Yates reminisces about her husband, she often thinks of a phrase he uttered so often during their 34 years of marriage.

“Come on, Char. It’s once in a lifetime,” he would say before whisking her away to explore the pyramids in Egypt, take a cruise, or play golf in Pebble Beach, California.

“He would go anywhere, any time,” Charlene fondly recalls.

The two met in high school. Charlene and Shawn would exchange shy hellos as they passed in the hall. It wasn’t until the two snuck into a Windsor wine festival that Shawn, the captain of the football team, worked up the courage to ask Charlene to dance.

“The rest was history,” she says.

The high school sweethearts married in 1983 and in 2017, watched their only son Bradley, 31, leave the house. They were starting to prepare for the next chapter of their lives. More traveling, more golfing and more time to spend together. But that all changed when Shawn was diagnosed with cancer in May 2017. Doctors were hopeful the active 57-year-old would respond well to treatment. Ten weeks later, his fight came to an end.

Lessons learned

Dec 7th, 2018

Civil engineering class of '67

In Canada’s centennial year, 13 civil engineering graduates from Ontario’s newest public university entered into an unsuspecting world to compete for internship positions against those who graduated from older, more prestigious institutions.

In 2017, six members of the class returned to campus to rekindle friendships, poke fun at their convincing old men disguises, and offer the following observations and suggestions to those who are following in their footsteps.

Engineers are the primary life-support providers for the seven billion messy people crowded on planet Earth. They rely upon us to put science into action to satisfy their rapacious needs and to accommodate the estimated one billion newbies added to this planet every 12 to 15 years.

Their expectation is that these needs be satisfied not only quickly, safely and affordably, but sustainably as well. Welcome to our busy profession. Our effectiveness as engineering practitioners depends upon our ability to research, develop and apply the newest scientific discoveries and technological advances wisely.