A Lesson in What Not To Do

Being in Engineering definitely makes you view the world around you differently.

I have spent my last two work term designing the mechanical systems used in buildings (such as the heating and air conditioning systems). If I do my job right, you'll never notice all of the work that I've done (because you will always be a comfortable temperature and all of the ugly and noisy mechanical equipment will be hidden away).


On my bus ride home from work, I pass by this apartment building which is always a reminder to me of what not to do! Overall, this apartment building looks very well kept, out front there is lots of nice landscaping. However, when I look at this apartment building, all I can see is the TERRIBLE location of the mechanical roof top unit!

In the picture below, I've zoomed in on the penthouse patios which are supposed to open to a beautiful view of the sky. Unfortunately, some mechanical engineer located a roof top unit right behind the opening. Now all you can see when you look up is the mechanical equipment which completely destroys the view that the architect was aiming for!


This is a perfect example of why it is so important to see the bigger picture and to think a problem through from all angles. I'm sure this piece of equipment keeps the apartments the right temperature but because the engineer forgot to think about other implications of her/his mechanical system, the view has been destroyed.

Wouldn't it be cool if you had a gigantic multi-touch computer screen (like the iPhone)? Well, we made one for our 4th year design project. The screen measures 48" diagonally, a nice size for a workspace or for multi-player games. Here's a video of our table in action, running on Windows 7.



How does it work? We used a physics phenomenon called frustrated total internal reflection. If you shine light into the side of a sheet of acrylic (Plexiglas), the light will be trapped inside due to total internal reflection (gr 12 physics). Now when you touch the surface, it "frustrates" the light at that spot and so light escapes. You use a camera to capture this image and figure out where the finger was pressed. You can see a picture of what our camera captures when a hand touches the table:



Clarification: The team consists of myself and 3 male classmates. Nonetheless, 25% is still several times higher than the percentage of female students in my class.

What I do at work:

Whenever people ask me exactly what I do at work, I find it very hard to describe. I usually give them a vague reply like “I design the mechanical systems in buildings”. Although, I know that this doesn’t really mean much to most people. So I thought I’d write a blog post where I try to actually explain what I do at work.

The mechanical systems that I design are the heating, ventilation, air conditioning and plumbing systems within buildings. This might sound straightforward but there are a lot of different variables involved.

The first thing that needs to be determined is which type of systems will be used and how heating and cooling will be provided. Most commonly, an air handling unit is used to heat and cool air which is then blown into the space that you are trying to heat or cool.

There are a few different options for how heating and cooling will be provided. Here are some examples of how the air can be heated within the air handler:

-Hot Water Coils: Hot water runs through metal coils and a fan blows the air over the coils so that the heat will transfer from the hot water to the air.
-Electric heat: Air is heated by being blown over electric heating coils.
-Gas heat: Gas is burned within the units to heat the air.

Every system has pros and cons. For example, hot water coils are very efficient but require a lot of space because a boiler is required to heat the hot water (and pumps to circulate the hot water).

Once you’ve figured out how you are going to provide heating and cooling, you need to figure out how you are going to keep all of the spaces that the air handler services comfortable at the same time. The air handler will service many different spaces and they won’t always need the same amount of heating and cooling. Here are a couple different options for that:

-Control Air Volume (CAV) Systems with terminal re-heat: Use your air handler to heat the air to the lowest temperature required by any of the spaces you are controlling. Then use a small re-heat unit in each space to increase the temperature for just that space to whatever it requires. (Now you have to go back and determine how you will provide this heat - hot water or electric?).
-Variable Air Volume (VAV) Systems: Use your air handler to heat the air to be really hot (or really cold) but control the amount of air which flows into each room. If a room is already a good temperature, don’t supply it with air. If a room is really cold, provide it will lots of air. Etc...

Each of these systems has their own pros and cons. A CAV system is great if your rooms will usually all need the same amount of heating and cooling but a VAV system is better if there is lots of variation between the rooms.

Next, you need to determine how much heating and cooling each space will likely require. This is done by determining where you will loose heat and where you will gain heat. For example, windows will make the space loose heat and people will make the space gain heat. This is important so that you can determine how much airflow each room will need and how large your air handling unit must be.

Once you’ve decided all of that, you need to determine how you will get the air to the space (i.e. with ductwork). This requires lots of coordination with the architect and structural engineer to make sure that ducts will fit within the ceiling space.

Once you’ve brought the air into each room, you need to select diffusers appropriate for the space. When selecting diffusers, it is important to consider noise and speed. You don’t want your diffusers to be sending out so much air that they make a whistling noise or that people feel drafts of hot (or cold) air blowing on them.

Ultimately, what I love about my job is that every day is different because every building is different. This means that I am constantly learning and everyday provides a new challenge.

The classes that most strongly relate to what I do at work are heat transfer and fluid mechanics.

Engineering in Classical Rome

A couple terms ago, as an elective, I took a course on Roman Art & Archaeology. The course as a whole was very interesting but one small aspect of the course really caught my attention. One of the items that we discussed was Roman aqueducts.

Historically, cities always had to be located close to a body of water because all humans need water to survive. This really limited where cities could be located. Before the classical period, there was no way to transport water across long distances (think about how heavy water is!) but in ancient Rome they engineered a system for transporting water across great distances using aqueducts.

Aqueducts were large structures that spanned great distances at a very slight angle. These aqueducts connected large bodies of water to remote city locations and used gravity to maintain a continuous flow of water into the city. Some aqueducts even ran through mountains – the engineers would tunnel through the mountain from each side and meet in the middle. This required incredible precision and is an amazing engineering feat!

When the aqueducts reached the city, the water was then directed into the homes and fountains of the city and for the first time in history, people had the luxury of running water into their homes!

It is really interesting to reflect on how much engineering has impacted the world – imagine life without something as fundamental as running water.

Final thoughts – what is yet to be invented that 2000 years from now will be considered as fundamental as running water?

It's Just Rocket Science!

In high school physics class, students learn how to calculate the speed and acceleration caused by forces acting on an object and the forces that occur when objects interact with one another. But what happens when you have a constant stream of fluid on an object? How can you calculate and analyze the force applied by a fluid?

The answer is through the study of Fluid Mechanics. It was my favourite course last term. I think it is really cool to be able to analyze the pressure and forces that a fluid will exert on an object and it is useful for so many different applications!

Fluid mechanics is used in the design of the following:

-Rocket Science – It is a knowledge of fluid mechanics that allows engineers to design rockets. They need to determine how much gas must be produced through combustion to propel the rocket at the acceleration that it needs.

-Aerodynamics of cars – The shape of a car can drastically change its performance. Cars are designed to allow the air to flow smoothly across them without creating too much drag (which really slows cars down). A car without much drag is much more fuel efficient – so this is pretty important!

- Environmental water systems such as dams – A dam has to be built to be strong enough to support the weight of the water it holds, so it is really important to be able to calculate how much force the water will exert on the dam

-Air planes – What makes a plane fly? Fluid Mechanics! The shape of planes’ wings are designed so that when the air passes around them, more force is exerted on the bottom of the wing and this pushes the whole plane upwards. Without a knowledge of fluid mechanics we definitely wouldn’t have the amazing huge planes that we have today.

As you can see, fluid mechanics has a lot of important applications, which makes it pretty interesting. Plus, it's pretty cool to be able to say that you really are studying rocket science!

MSci 452: Decision Making Under Uncertainty

The most interesting and enjoyable course that I have taken as part of my Management Sciences option has to be MSci 452: Decision Making Under Uncertainty. The course deals with different approaches to decision making process by looking at factors (for example biases) that exist when we are making decisions under uncertainty. Last spring term, when I took the course, it was taught by Professor Scott Jeffrey who clearly enjoys teaching the course material and always has some great advice to share!

In addition to learning a great deal about the mistakes that are made when we make decisions, the course also focuses on how to improve this process. At the end of the term, we were also able to do negotiations, and I believe I speak for the majority of the class when I say that was the most enjoyable part of the course. During the various negotiations, we were partnered up and had to negotiate based on case studies, using what we had learned during the course. We had to negotiate deals for things like buying a car, selling an antique set, and getting funding for a project. This was a fun way to put in use the course material and interact with our classmates.

This spring, if you are looking for a course where you can learn a lot while having lots of fun, take MSci 452!

Another term begins...

On Monday I am returning to work for the start of another co-op job. Although I'm sad to see my time off coming to an end, I am very exciting to begin my last co-op term.

At UW, all engineering students are in the co-op program, which means that every four months we swap between work and school. This definitely keeps life interesting!

I think my favorite thing about alternating between work and school is that it really makes you realize how useful all of your courses are. There are so many times at work when I have a moment where I stop and think "wow! this is exactly what I learned in --- class!" and so many times when I am reading a textbook and I realize "oh, that's why we do things they way we do at work!". It is really neat to be able to constantly connect learning to application. It really keeps me motivated in school because I have such a good sense of why I am learning what I'm learning and I know exactly how I will use it when I go back to work.

I'm really excited to find out what projects I'll be working on this term - whatever they are, I know they'll be interesting!

Co-op Term on Campus

I am currently on a co-op work term, working on campus with a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Working on campus is great. I did not have to suffer the trauma of traveling somewhere unheard of and I already know the bus route.

My boss has a contract with the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (MTO) that involves predicting rainfall patterns throughout the province. The MTO is concerned with rainfall information because it would help them to design highways to handle the rainfall at a given location. Highways span the entire province, not just in cities areas where weather stations provide local data. Finding a suitable method of predicting rainfall patterns between stations is the objective of the contract. The challenge is that weather stations are so inconsistantly distributed. The stations are almost exclusively located in southern Ontario. This makes it difficult to predict rainfall in the northern parts of the province. The project involved an interim report, which will be my work report after a few tune-ups. It has also encouraged me to develop my computer skills emmensly. I did not know there was so much that I did not know.

Working in the faculty is a great experience. I have hands on experience with cutting edge research! Seeing the faculty from the inside changed my entire preception of universities. There is so much more that goes on than I knew about. Class is clearly not the highest priority, but it is all that a first year student sees. There is so much more after an undergraduate degree, so much fullfillment and so many applications. There is so much passion in the faculty. Everyone loves what they do, they would not have a PhD in it if they didn't. It is inspiring; it makes me want to learn!

My boss was teaching a graduate class this past term. It was very interesting to see such advanced applications of Civil Engineering, but also to see classes from the instructors perspective. He also manages all of the work reports for the faculty, actually his co-op (me) does this. It was nice to get so many tips on report writing from the guy who controls them.

Thoughts on Admissions and Applications...

It is that time of year when grade 12 students are anxiously waiting to hear if they have been admitted or not. This has made me reflect on when I was in grade 12 and what I've learned since then.

I remember when I was in grade 12, everyone told me that UW Engineering was so hard to get accepted into and that once you were there it was an extremely difficult program. I was worried that even if I was accepted, it would be too difficult and that I wouldn't be successful. I was so worried about this, that for a while I almost chose to go into science instead. Looking back, I am so glad that I faced my fears and accepted my offer!

That was a few years ago now. So I have a much different perspective on UW Engineering than I did when I was in grade 12 and there are a few things that I wish I could have heard.

1. Engineering is challenging but it is not impossible and you can still have other interests!
The people who study Engineering are regular people. We all have lives and interests outside of engineering (as you can see from all the awesome things that people are posting about on this blog!) Engineering will make you work hard but it will also help you to learn so much about the world around you. Most importantly, if you are struggling there are so many people watching out for you who are willing to help if you need it.

2. Extracurricular Activities really do matter!
UW really does read every admissions information form that they receive. Engineering is so broad that all different skill sets and abilities bring different assets to one's experiences as an Engineer.

3. The guys who apply for engineering don't actually know any more than you do!
I remember for the first couple of months in Engineering I was so worried! All of the guys in my class could go on and on about engineering things that I had never heard of - so I figured that they all knew so much more than I did. I was so shocked when midterms came and I did just as well as them. Eventually, I came to realize that most of those guys didn't know anything more than me - they were just better at pretending. If you speak with confidence it is amazing how many people you can convince! So don't be scared off by people who are good at pretending to know more than you.

4. You won't be just a number!
I remember in high school all of my teachers and guidance counselors tried to prepare all of us for becoming 'just a number' in university. In engineering this is not the case! At UW, you will have almost all of your classes with the same group of about 50-100 people. That may seem like a lot of people, but you will be surprised by how quickly you learn everyone's name. Everyone in my class knows each other - which is really helpful whenever you have a question with homework or a project! Also, professors really care about their students. Whenever I pass by a professor in the hall, she or he always recognizes me and says hi.

5. Engineering is full of group work!
This was a huge surprise to me. In high school, I always thought that engineering would be such a solitary degree and that I would always be working by myself. I couldn't have been more wrong! Every term we have tonnes of group projects (probably more group projects than individual projects). This is really important to being an Engineer because at work I am always working as a part of a team!

Some final thoughts...
As a Women in Engineering Director, I participate in meetings with the Women in Engineering Committee. One of the past members of this committee was the UW Engineering Admissions Director. One of the things that she would frequently talk about was that girls in high school tend to "self-select" themselves. Meaning that if a program required an average of 80%, girls would generally only apply if they had an average of 82% but lots of guys with an average of 78% would end up getting accepted. These guys will then go on to be completely successful in the program. So my final piece of encouragement is that "you can do it!"

So.. if you're in grade 11 - apply next year! If you're in grade 12 - accept your offer!

A day in the life of an EngSoc President

I get a pretty unique experience as President of the Engineering Society. At Waterloo we alternate between Society A and Society B every four months since everyone is in the coop program. This means I’m elected for a 16 month term and I will spend 8 months of that in school and the other 8 months on coop while another executive takes over. I’m also a full time student, so I take the same course load as everyone else in Engineering. That keeps me pretty busy!

My favourite part about being President is the incredible group of people I get to work with. The executive consists of the President and four VP’s (that’s us below, along with our endowment fund director). I also get to work with Mary, our fabulous corporate manager, and a lot of really fun and dedicated directors.



A big chunk of my job is being the student representative at meetings – this term I’ve had anywhere from 4 to 17 meetings per week! I sit on a lot of academic committees (like the faculty council and examinations and promotions committee), as well as meetings with Presidents from all the other societies on campus, and the committee that reviews the structure of orientation week.

There are also a ton of events that EngSoc puts on every term. We run everything from pub nights, to pulling a bus for charity, to spa nights, to a 24 hour scavenger hunt! You can see a picture of some of us below during Frost Week when we dyed ourselves purple, the official engineering colour. At the right is our acting-Dean Rothenburg, showing off his purple hand.

Design Symposium

Well, I was intending on finding some pictures and getting permissions to post them from the people in them and the people who took them. However, as this draught has just turned one week old, I'll post it now, and come back and edit with pictures later.

One of the things that everyone in engineering at Waterloo has to do is a fourth year project. This varies from department to department, but what MME (Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering) students do is to tackle a design project. There's two courses to this - ME 481 in the 4A term, where we have to design something, and then come up with enough detailed drawings, component lists, etc that we could give our final report to someone who knew nothing else about the project, and get it made exactly right. The second course is ME 482, in 4B. For Mechanical students this is optional, but for those of us in Mechatronics it's mandatory. This is where you build the project, and discover all the places where you left out information in the design phase.

On Monday, all the Mechatronics students had the penultimate part of our course. We took our finished projects and went to the great hall in the student life centre to set up our symposium. For four hours, we took questions from visitors to campus - lots of parents came, younger engineering students- especially the third year mechatronics students who have to do this next year, and other students who to figure out why the chairs that normally sit in the great hall had been moved.

My project was an automated window. Basically the relevant parts are that it will open and close itself, based on how warm it feels inside and outside. There's a couple of manual overrides, and a few other constraints on how it works, but those weren't why we made it. Basically we wanted to make something that would encourage green technology, things like opening the windows instead of turning on the A/C.

My partner and I were kept talking all afternoon, explaining to people what the project was. There were a surprisingly large number of people.

Mechatronics - Nut Sorter Project

One of the exciting things that I have done in Mechatronics so far is this Nut Sorter Project.

The idea is to design a Mechatronics system that can sort nut of different sizes and types. It should also be able to detect coins in the process and reject them. There were size constrains as to how big the sorter can be and we also had a budget that we had to work within.

At the start of the term we were given a kit that contained some sensors, stepper and DC motors and some basic electronics components. At the end of the term a competition was held to evaluate the sorter based on speed, accuracy and design.

Here is the picture of the nut sorter that our group had designed. This sorter works based on the shadow a nut casts. Depending on the size of the shadow, the nut is dispensed into the respective bin.

Attached are two of the videos that shows how the sorter works





Enjoy the videos. You can look at other nut sorter projects on Youtube.

Martha's Sons

Part of going to a Canadian engineering school is a special ceremony called "The Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer". This was alluded to in the previous post. If any of you already know engineers, then you're familiar with the iron ring. It is a reminder to engineers that the work we do is important, and we get it when we participate in a ceremony in which we agree to always do our best to produce good work. Both my parents are engineers, and I've grown up knowing about the iron ring. It's really cool (and weird) to finally have my own. You cannot attend the ritual unless you are an engineer who has an iron ring already, but since both my parents are, and one of my grandfathers, here you can see me with my guests.



This ritual was written by Rudyard Kipling for Canadian engineers back in the 1920's, and to this day every graduate of Canadian engineering schools is given the opportunity to participate. So it means a lot to me that I got to take part in this ritual. The ritual is semi-private, so I can't really give a lot of details here, but here's a picture of the iron ring, what everyone spends their time here looking forward to. Sorry for the quality of the picture, but the ring is worn on the dominant hand, so anyone trying to take a picture of their own ring is forced to use their non-dominant hand (left in my case).


The post title comes from one of Kipling's poems. It's one that really shows why he was considered appropriate to write a ritual for engineers, and the high esteem in which he holds the work of engineers.

Engineering Antics

My class has been looking pretty ridiculous lately. Somebody decided that this month would be Moustache March so there's been a lot of not shaving going on.

The girls in the class were the judges today, and we awarded the following titles

• best musketeer
• most original design
• least kissable (they all won)
• creepiest 'stache
• best use of mascara
• dirtiest

Also, tomorrow is IRS (Iron Ring Stag) so basically all the graduating engineers get their rings, and then go to a giant party. However, that means today is the day the engineers get dressed up, parade around campus, disrupt class rooms, etc.

I'm really excited because if the class of 2009 has gotten their rings, it means that I am next in line. Class of 2010, here we come!

Design of a Culvert Crossing

I am a current first year environmental engineering student. The final project for our 'Introduction to Civil & Environmental Engineering' course involved the predesign of a culvert crossing on campus. A culvert is a tunnel that allows water to pass through. They are often used to allow water to pass under roadways.

Currently there is a by-pass channel (flowing body of water) on campus. There is a crossing with two steel culverts that allows water to flow under the crossing. The project was to develop a more advanced culvert system that would be able to handle a greater amount and speed of water. The replacement culvert was to be designed to stand up to a hundred year storm. A hundred year storm is the largest storm that would be expected to occur in the area within a hundred year period.

We spent hours outside surveying the site. We recorded the elevations of the land around the channel and even put on waders and surveyed through the channel. We recorded the distance between all points so that they could accurately be plotted on an AutoCAD map.

Once the data were collected we created a map of the area, and developed a design for a replacement culvert. We had to consider the quantity and speed of water from a hundred year storm.

The project was very open ended. It was up to us to specify the finer details of the proposed crossing. We had the option of designing a sidewalk and guardrail if we thought it was necessary and we had to determine a suitable road width based on how much traffic the site sees. We had to compare the efficiency of 5 different culvert diameters and the number of culverts was completely up to us.

Ultimately, the design that I proposed included 6 culverts, each having a 1.2 meter diameter.

Through the experience, we all developed our surveying and autocad skills, and learned about report writing.

Engineering Explorations 2009

This past Monday was Explorations 2009. Explorations is an outreach event that is run every term for elementary school students in grades 6, 7 and 8. The students are toured around the campus and shown different things that people are working on within engineering.

I volunteered as a tour guide for the evening and brought a group of about 8 interested students around to our various stops. They all had lots of fun and learned a lot about what engineering is all about.

Some of the highlights of the tour were:
-the autonomous landmine detectors which are being built by the UW Robotics Group
-the Connect 4 robot which is able to play the game connect 4 (and it usually wins!)
-the geological display where the kids were shown how quicksand occurs and were able to simulate an earthquake
-the Solar car which runs entirely on solar energy that has been collected by the solar panels covering the entire car

I think Explorations is a great event and such a fun way to introduce young students to engineering!