Engineering Students Push Boundaries of Innovation in Awards Competition

Posted March 25, 2004


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - March 25, 2004 2004-03-31-ENG

Engineering Students Push Boundaries of Innovation in Awards Competition

Engineering students presented solutions to real world problems that will
advance technologies --from electronics to drill bits -- at the 2004
Engineering Innovative Design and Student Paper Presentation Competitions at
the University of Saskatchewan on March 24.

Thirteen projects involving 39 U of S students were entered this year. The
work, much of it sponsored by Saskatchewan-based companies, pitted the
student teams against engineering design problems supplied by researchers
and industry partners across Canada.

"The high calibre of this year's entries reflects the talent and creativity
of our students," says David Sumner, associate professor of mechanical
engineering and coordinator for the event. "It also illustrates how
effective the U of S engineering program is at producing highly skilled,
well trained professionals for a demanding industry."

Two teams came out on top.

Greg Florizone, Lindsey Hinther, David Muir, and Ben Wilson won the
innovative design competition by designing a manipulator head that operates
in an ultrahigh vacuum environment to handle samples for a scanning
tunneling microscope. The manipulator allows samples to be prepared in the
airless environment. then transferred to the microscope. This greatly
expands the range of samples that can be studied.

The work was done for the nanoscale and surface physics research group of
the department of physics and engineering physics, under the supervision of
Professor Katie Mitchell. She explains the students' innovation will aid her
own research into nanoscale surface structures, which may lead to advances
in sensors and electronics. It also could be commercialized by the
microscope manufacturer.

"This design project required an enormous amount of background knowledge
that the students wouldn't have had from their courses," Mitchell says.
"Typically, people designing these things have had 10 years of experience
designing for ultrahigh vacuum."

In the paper presentation competition, Dale Heggie, Joel Leslie, and Curtis
Olson explained how high voltage electricity and a plasma chamber can be
used to introduce precise amounts of impurities to materials. The powerful
technique can tailor optical, electronic or mechanical properties in
materials used for products from drill bits to silicon wafers for
electronics.

Professor Michael Bradley of the department of physics and engineering
physics supervised the team. He says the challenge was to take extremely
specialized knowledge and explain it to a general engineering audience.

"They were able to step back and say, why would the average person care
about this?" Bradley says. "I think an indicator of their success was that
we got about four or five very intelligent questions from the audience. The
presentation obviously resonated with something they were interested in and
could identify with."

This annual competition is sponsored by the Saskatoon Engineering Society
(SES), which represents local Professional Engineers registered with the
Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Saskatchewan
(APEGS). The competitions were judged by local industry professionals.
Additional support was provided by the College of Engineering and the Office
of the Vice-President Research at the University of Saskatchewan.

The innovative design portion of the competition looks for the most
innovative design, process, or technological development that has potential
for application in industry or contribution to society. The paper
presentation portion focuses on the best oral presentation on an engineering
topic, such as fourth-year design work or a class-related engineering
project in which the students have been involved.

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For more information, contact:

David Sumner
Associate Professor
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
University of Saskatchewan
Phone: (306) 966-5537
david.sumner@usask.ca

Michael Robin
U of S Research Communications
Phone: (306) 966-2427
michael.robin@usask.ca
www.usask.ca/research