Engineering student Trevor Condon with his team's hovercraft during last year's Engineering Two hovercraft design challenge at UBC's Okanagan campus.
Next week will be a busy time for engineering students at UBC’s Okanagan campus, as first-, second- and fourth-year students present major projects in three public showcases.
- Second-year Engineering students will race hovercraft they’ve designed and built next Thursday, April 7, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the gymnasium at UBC’s Okanagan campus.
- Fourth-year students will present their capstone design course projects on Friday, April 8, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Arts and Science II building, rooms ASC 140 and 130.
- First-year students will demonstrate their innovative can-crushing machines in their annual Engineering Design Competition, with demonstrations underway from 2 to 3:30 p.m., Monday, April 11, in the Fipke Centre for Innovative Research.
The public is welcome to attend all three events.
Students float hovercraft ideas for Engineering Two — Thursday, April 7
Using paper, balsa wood, up to four propellers and a couple of battery packs, teams of second-year Engineering students have spent the past term constructing hovercrafts for the April 7 hovercraft design challenge.
They will be aiming for energy efficiency while maximizing straight-line speed for sprint racing and maintaining the agility to weave through a series of pylons in the obstacle course.
Their task is to design and construct a moving platform – a hovercraft – that can carry at least 1 kg. while performing tasks such as racing across the Gymnasium floor at top speed. Energy efficiency is as important as speed, so each craft’s energy consumption will be measured in a lab prior to the races.
The challenge is part of the students’ Applied Science APSC 258 course, however, Engineering instructor Vladan Prodanovic notes that the project is essentially integrated into other second-year courses as well, as it draws upon knowledge students have gained from their Fluid Mechanics, Mechanics of Materials and Analog and Digital Systems courses.
Performance testing – the actual racing and time trials — gets underway at 9 a.m. in the Gymnasium, followed by poster presentations about each team’s project and award presentations from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Capstone designs revealed – Friday, April 8
They’ve put everything they’ve learned over the past four years of intensive study into this. On April 8, teams of fourth-year students in the civil, electrical and mechanical engineering programs will unveil the special projects they’ve been working on with industry partners this term as part of their capstone design course.
“The course provides an opportunity for students to work on a real-world design problem proposed by a local industry,” says Engineering Instructor Ray Taheri, who coordinates the course along with School of Engineering Director Spiro Yannacopoulos. “Students must draw on a wide range of knowledge gained during their time in the program in order to successfully achieve the design objectives.”
Student teams have been working with local firms on challenging problems – such as designing bus shelters, developing electronic road signs, and working on hybrid wind turbine-fuel cell power generation systems.
The student capstone design projects will be presented Friday, April 8, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Arts and Science II building, rooms ASC 140 and 130.
Engineering One takes on can-crushing challenge – Monday, April 11
For this year’s Engineering One design challenge, teams of first-year Engineering students are tasked with building machines capable of loading, crushing, sorting, counting and collecting aluminum cans.
Over the past term, students in the Applied Science 170 course have been using their budgets of $150 to design and build their machines. At the competition on April 11, they will earn bonus marks for best energy efficiency, most overall presentable design, most robust and practical design, and most accurate, sorting, counting, and flattening.
The project requires teams to develop their conceptual design, build a prototype, and demonstrate it publicly with an oral presentation. Judges selected by the School of Engineering and the Okanagan Science Centre will determine who wins the School of Engineering’s prestigious Best Machine and Best Presentation prizes.
The presentations take place from 2 to 3:30 p.m. on Monday, April 11, in the Fipke Centre for Innovative Research.
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