UPEI soars at Atlantic Engineering Competition
Students from UPEI’S Faculty of Sustainable Design Engineering made a terrific showing at the annual Atlantic Engineering Competition, held recently in Fredericton, New Brunswick. UPEI’s senior students took first place in their division. The junior team placed second. Both teams are invited to the Canadian Engineering Competition (CEC), being held next month in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
The Atlantic Engineering Competition (AEC) is an annual event that pits teams of engineering students against each other in eight different competitions: re-engineering, communications, innovative design, debate, junior design, senior design, programming, and consulting. The top two teams in each competition advance to compete in the CEC.
This year, two teams of students from UPEI competed at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton. The junior design team was made up of second-year students Benoit Sampson, Kyle Doiron, Chad Stewart, and Andrew Friedrich. The senior design team was made up of fourth-year students Spencer Lynch, Lucas Gallant, Tharuka Kuruppu, and Ryan Stewart.
Both the senior and junior design competitions consist of coming up with practical solutions to real-world technical problems. Teams were presented with an industry-related problem and were tasked with designing and building a functioning prototype in a limited amount of time while creating a technical presentation.
After the design phase, competitors presented their designs to a panel of technical judges for evaluation. The teams also tested their designs in front of the judges for further evaluation.
UPEI’s junior design group was challenged with designing a portable dam that would be completely independent of the testing setup. The UPEI students competed against 14 other first- and second-year teams.. The senior design group was tasked with designing a residential pollutant particulate capture system to captures volatile organic compounds and nitric oxide from the air. UPEI’s senior team competed against two other teams in this category. Both prototypes were constructed out of everyday materials, such as popsicle sticks, sponges, tubing, and tape.
“I would like to congratulate both the senior and junior design teams for their outstanding performances at the Atlantic Engineering Competition,” said Dr. Nicholas Krouglicof, dean of the Faculty of Sustainable Design Engineering. “These students are all a proud product of our unique, hands-on undergraduate program that is focused on engineering design and delivering innovative solutions to real-world problems. I can’t say that I’m at all surprised by the outcome of the competition, and I’m confident that the two teams will continue to do us proud at the national level.”
UPEI will host the 2021 Atlantic Engineering Competition for the first time and will be looking for industry support for the event.
