Engineering clubs are created by students and for students. They provide a sandbox that lets future engineers make new things, sometimes starting with mistakes. COVID-19 jeopardized the clubs, but they’re coming back strong and punching above their weight.
“It’s not something that you expect a group of students to take on because of the technical complexity,” says Thomas Ganley, an engineering physics student and member of the club AlbertaSat.
The “something” he’s talking about is creating Alberta’s second ever satellite, Ex-Alta 2, and preparing it for launch in early 2023.
Ex-Alta 2 (part of a group of satellites) is scheduled to launch to the International Space Station in January 2023. Image courtesy Nanosats Database
The group working on the Ex-Alta 2 comprises as many as 100 students at varying commitment levels. They are bringing the processes, training, leadership and network of a small professional engineering company to bear. And that’s sort of the point. “Tech and technology development, debugging, working through problems, designing or planning the various phases of a mission gives you skills that are really useful once you graduate and get out into industry,” says Ganley, the project manager.
Oh, and that satellite they built? It has real-world implications, too. Ex-Alta 2 (part of a group of satellites) is scheduled to launch to the International Space Station in January 2023 from Cape Canaveral in Florida. From there, it will deploy into orbit, where it will monitor Earthly wildfires, wildfire risk zones and post-burn areas.
AlbertaSat isn’t the only sandbox for students to play in, where they can develop the skills to make a difference.
Other student clubs, like EcoCar, take on equally massive projects. EcoCar designs, manufactures and then races a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle every year at the Shell Eco-marathon. Clubs give students space to fail (and try again), says mechanical engineering student and EcoCar project manager Rafid Khan.
“A lot of what we do in class is theoretical,” says Khan. “So with EcoCar, a huge focus is hands-on experience. If you want to design something, design it. And after you manufacture it, you’re probably going to find it didn’t meet your expectations. But you’re going to make mistakes, learn and get better.”
In the process, students also contribute to a lower carbon future. In April 2023, the EcoCar team will compete against hundreds of other student clubs in the Shell Eco-marathon, which brings together students from around the globe to design, build and drive energy-efficient vehicles. But it was touch and go for a minute.
The EcoCar team designs, manufactures and then races a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle every year at the Shell Eco-marathon
From March 2020 until February 2021, like everything else, engineering clubs moved online. Pivoting to a design-only focus, they were forced to manage project delays while actively losing members and struggling to find new students to fill the gaps. Plus, the EcoCar competition moved to the virtual space — not quite as fun as racing a car you built with your bare hands.
“A big draw for us is being able to give students hands-on experience on certain types of machinery or welding or carbon fibre manufacturing,” says Khan. “It was tough to keep them around without that.”
With attention spans elsewhere, the groups’ funding suffered too. “EcoCar started to see its corporate sponsorship quiet down at the beginning of COVID,” says Khan.
AlbertaSat’s membership fell during the pandemic. “We have an obligation to the Canadian Space Agency to fulfill, and the work has to get done,” says Ganley. And those experiences affect students beyond university.
“I think of my job as EcoCar, but in real life,” says Aishwarya Venkitachalam, ’20 BSc(MecEng), EcoCar alumna and current mechanical design engineer at Tesla. “I’m doing similar things at Tesla now, just at a much higher magnitude.”
Venkitachalam, who served in various roles in EcoCar from 2016 through 2020, vividly remembers the commute from her co-op work placement back to campus to work long nights at the club. But the experience allowed her to explore her creativity and made her confident when choosing a career in mechanical design.
“My internships and my career couldn’t have happened without EcoCar,” Venkitachalam says. “Clubs give you what companies are looking for – not a surface understanding of concepts, but a solid understanding that comes from practice. You will carry the experience throughout your career.”
| By Kalyna Hennig Epp
Kalyna is a reporter with the University of Alberta’s Folio online magazine. The University of Alberta is a Troy Media Editorial Content Provider Partner.
The opinions expressed by our columnists and contributors are theirs alone and do not inherently or expressly reflect the views of our publication.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
