UPEI engineering team succeeds at Atlantic Engineering Competition
A four-member undergraduate engineering team from the University of Prince Edward Island finished second in the consulting engineering category of the Atlantic Engineering Competition held in Moncton earlier this month.
This success earned them a spot in the Canadian Engineering Competition, which will be held at the University of Waterloo from March 6 to 8.
At the Atlantic Engineering Competition, the students, all in their third year of UPEI's engineering program, competed against fourth- and fifth-year students from other Atlantic universities. The four students come from across P.E.I.: Mary Beth MacInnis, from Souris; Anne Somers, Charlottetown; Matt Duffy, Kinkora; and Gustavo Zanatta, Summerside.
During the regional competition, the consulting engineering teams had to develop a solution to a real-world problem, using the theme of sustainable development. Each team had six hours to develop an economically feasible design with minimal social and environmental impacts. The UPEI team had to find a way to boil water without using firewood. Upon receiving their problem, they selected Haiti as their region of focus.
The team decided to use bio-fuels for their solution, and developed a plan for using sugarcane to produce ethanol. The sugarcane would be crushed in a press to extract the juice, which would be fermented and distilled. The leftover sugarcane stalks would be sun-dried and burnt to distill the juice, which would result in the production of ethanol.
They also did an impact study that considered the environmental, social, political and economic aspects of the project, which they presented to the competition judges, along with their design, at the end of the six hours. The following day, they formally presented their project to the judges.
At the national competition, the team will be presented with a new project, for which they will have to develop a solution, produce a report and present their project within a few hours of intense research and design.
'We are very proud of all of our students,' says Dr. Wayne Peters, chair of the engineering department. 'The current success in regional and national competitions shows that, once again, UPEI engineering students are some of the best in the country. It's exciting to see that they excel in environmental design challenges. This gives me great hope for the future of engineering at UPEI and for the Island community.'
The team's success follows a tradition of excellence. Zanatta competed at the nationals in 2007. While taking a year away from school to serve as a Canadian infantry soldier in Afghanistan last year, Duffy gained a reputation for designing unique field equipment to help improve the safety for Canadian military vehicles. And in 2006 and 2007, UPEI engineering students won at the national competition in junior design, a high rate of success for one of the smallest engineering programs in Canada.
Photo (left to right): Mary Beth MacInnis, Matthew Duffy, Gustavo Zanatta and Anne Somers
