Sparring robots? Bridge crushing? Welcome to Engineering Week!

Grab your hard hat! Concordia’s Engineering Week runs from March 7 to 11 on the Sir George Williams Campus.

New to the program this year is a series of six engineering competitions, offering cash prizes, trophies, certificates and loot bags courtesy of the Engineering and Computer Science Association (ECA), the event’s main organizing host.

It’s on

The competitions are open to all Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science (ENCS) students.

“We started them because Concordia was lacking a big pre-competition leading up to the Quebec Engineering Competition (QEC),” says Dilani Abeywickrama, a mechanical engineering student and the vice-president of Academic Affairs for ECA.

“Next year, we can hold our’s a bit earlier, before the QEC, and maybe our best students will go,” she says. “These events help students gain and improve their technical as well as soft skills.”

New additions include junior design, senior design, re-engineering, consulting engineering, scientific communication and a programming challenge. The entrants will be in teams of two or four students. You can register as a team, or register solo and a team will be assigned. Check the website for times and locations.

“There’s a wine and cheese event on Thursday night to announce the winners and give out the prizes,” says Abeywickrama. 

Robots battle it out

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE Concordia) will host its third edition of RoboWars on Sunday, March 6, at 10 a.m. in the BMO Amphitheatre in the John Molson Building (MB). Contestants — including students and hobbyists from the community — build their own autonomous robot, with the only parameters being that it has to fit into a 20 x 20 cm square, and weigh no more than three kilograms.

“It’s like a sumo fight, except with robots instead of people,” says Tristan Cool, a fourth-year electrical engineering student, chair of IEEE Concordia and current RoboWars organizer.

This robot fight is not remote controlled. Participants use onboard circuitry — a chip called a microcontroller — to program their robots with a sort of artificial intelligence. They have to be autonomous. That means once the robots are turned on their builders can no longer communicate with them.

To win RoboWars, participants must have their robot push the other robot out of the arena. The robot that manages to stay within the boundaries wins. The competition gives engineering students an opportunity to build an embedded system and contacts.

Sponsor CDS is providing a $1,000 cash prize for first place, $500 for second and $250 for third. SpikenzieLabs is also donating an award for the best student robot. “Prizes are fun because they add to the excitement,” says Cool.

Last year, seven teams participated, and a similar number are expected this year.

If you can’t attend the final round robin in the BMO Amphitheatre in the MB Building, watch the live stream on the IEEE student website and Facebook page.

Troitsky Bridge Building Competition

What happens when you put engineering students in a room with Popsicle sticks, dental floss and toothpicks? They build bridges.

Concordia has been hosting the Troitsky Bridge Building Competition since 1984. To compete, students from across Canada and abroad make bridge parts out of Popsicle sticks, white glue, floss and toothpicks, which they bring to Montreal to assemble during the event.

This year, bridge-building day is on Friday, March 4 (check the website for the location). After presenting their bridges to their peers and the competition’s panel of judges, which is made up of industry professionals, teams of up to six participants submit their bridges to the crusher on Saturday, March 5 at 11:30 a.m. (check the website for the location). The crushing ceremony is open to the public.

Last year, 36 teams competed from across North America and Europe. There’s a $235 per person entry fee. First-prize winners share $2,500.

“Teams are judged on the aesthetics and originality of their bridge designs, their display booths, presentation, team spirit and the ultimate load carrying capacity of their bridge spans,” says Micha Kindarji, industrial engineering student and president of the competition’s organizing committee.

“People are very excited to get their bridges under the crusher,” she says. “Last year, one bridge didn’t explode until the crusher reached three tonnes of pressure.”

Kindarji thanks their sponsor, the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering.

“We’re so grateful to them because our event is an opportunity for students to do an extracurricular activity that puts the theories we study into action, in a real-life situation,” says Kindarji. “Plus, we meet people from different departments of engineering, and from the U.S. and across Canada, even France. It’s good for networking.”

The most important meal of the day

Throughout the week, engineering students are invited to start their day off with a free breakfast, served in Room B-104 of the B Annex (2160 Bishop St.), sponsored by the Concordia University Alumni Association.

Society Days, another regular component of Engineering Week, will be held on Wednesday, March 9 and Thursday, March 10 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., in the seventh-floor lounge of the Henry F. Hall Building. It provides an opportunity for students to discover or rediscover the 16 active societies and clubs within ECA. Members are on hand to showcase projects they’ve been working on throughout the year.

Lunch lecture on clean energy research

Students are invited to attend the next Research Lunch and Learn with Marius Paraschivoiu, Concordia Research Chair on Simulation for Clean Energy Production and Storage, and Paula Wood-Adams, dean of Graduate Studies, on Friday, March 11 from 12 p.m. to 1: 30 p.m. in EV 2.184

Paraschivoiu, the Concordia Research Chair on Simulation for Clean Energy Production and Storage, will give a brief overview of research in general, what is involved in the process, and how an undergraduate student can get involved. Then he will present, in detail, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)-based design of roof-mounted wind turbines.   

Wood-Adams, who heads up the Laboratory for the Physics of Advanced Materials, will give a brief overview of the opportunities available at Concordia to get involved in research as an undergraduate student, followed by a question and answer period.

There will be free pizza and refreshments served at the lunch, sponsored by the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering. Places are limited. To RSVP, email Keroles Riad at: k_riad@encs.concordia.ca

Learn more about what’s going on during Concordia’s Engineering Week, which runs from March 7 to 11 on the Sir George Williams Campus.