More than 350 students took part in UBC Okanagan’s Capstone Design Showcase and Competition at the KF Aerospace Centre for Excellence.
A semi-autonomous boat that measures Okanagan Lake’s water quality earned top honours at UBC Okanagan’s Capstone Design Showcase and Competition at the KF Aerospace Centre for Excellence on Friday.
The Semi-Autonomous Depth-Resolved Water Quality Unmanned Surface Vehicle team—Nathan Carscadden, Kevin Cserhalmi, Connor Kirkpatrick, Wesley Wang, Adiyar Yelyubayev and Yuriy Storozhuk—also claimed a $1,200 cash prize courtesy of Kelowna law firm FH&P.
“Kelowna is where we grew as engineers, and this project gave us the chance to put that education to work for the community directly,” Cserhalmi said, on behalf of his team.
“We went through several iterations to refine the problem and solution alongside the city, and landing on something that addresses a real operational need made the win feel particularly meaningful. We’re preparing a white paper for the city and are excited to see where it takes us.”
The winners built a semi-autonomous catamaran equipped with a winch-deployed sensor for studying turbidity and temperature at the City of Kelowna’s four drinking water intakes, creating readings at different depths.
Fifty-nine groups competed at the event, which drew more than 350 students and an audience of faculty, family and industry partners. Capstone is the culminating requirement for School of Engineering graduates.
Projects spanned automotive and aerospace, community and humanitarian engineering, infrastructure, software and data systems as well as sustainable and environmental solutions.
They included a power-assist device designed in collaboration with Accessible Okanagan, an AI tool to support smart construction and an amenity building for Greyback Construction’s Skaha Hills development.
UBCO’s Principal and Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Lesley Cormack, said the work on display went well beyond student exercises.
“When you walk through the showcase, you don’t just see projects—you see applied solutions that can have an impact on our region’s distinct challenges and opportunities,” she said.
For the third consecutive year, the top prize went to a student-owned entrepreneurial team that identified its own problem, secured a client and delivered a working solution.
“Entrepreneurial teams must bring their own problem forward to solve and then secure a client to work with,” said associate professor Dr. Alon Eisenstein, who co-led the event. “Our school continues to invest in the entrepreneurial education of our students, to add to their impressive engineering skills.”
The judges for the competition included 12 regional business leaders and six graduate students. Several judges are UBCO engineering alumni who previously competed in the capstone event.
School of Engineering Director Dr. Will Hughes framed the moment in broader terms.
“The world needs not only great engineers; it needs good engineers,” he said. “We need engineers who bring ingenuity, but also humility, kindness, resilience and a willingness to put the greater good before themselves.”
Category winners
- Automotive and Aerospace
Tire Cooling Solution for Mining Haul Truck (client: Kal Tire Mining Tire Group Innovation Centre) - Community and Humanitarian Engineering
Acting on Limitations: Improving Front Drive Power Assist Devices (client: entrepreneurial capstone) - Infrastructure and Construction
Skaha Hills Amenity Building (client: Greyback Construction) - Innovative Devices and Systems
Novel Area Thermal Pressure Relief Device (client: Hexagon Agility) - Software and Data Systems
BIM-AI Integration for Smart Construction (client: Dr. Qian Chen, UBCO) - Sustainable and Environmental Solutions and first place overall
Semi-Autonomous Depth-Resolved Water Quality Unmanned Surface Vehicle (client: City of Kelowna)
Nathan Carscadden, Kevin Cserhalmi, Connor Kirkpatrick, Wesley Wang, Adiyar Yelyubayev and Yuriy Storozhuk claimed top honours and a $1,200 cash prize sponsored by Kelowna law firm FH&P at UBC Okanagan’s Capstone Design Showcase and Competition.
