A shovel for Johnston: President David Johnston will be gone from Waterloo — occupying a larger stage as Governor General of Canada — by the time there's an actual ground-breaking for Waterloo's Stratford campus, but at least he'll have a shovel. The ceremonial tool (along with a formal key to the city) was presented to him Tuesday by Stratford mayor Dan Mathieson, left, as part of a ceremony and tribute in Stratford's city hall. The occasion was in part a "kickoff" for the temporary site of UW's Stratford presence, at 6 Wellington Street. Mathieson thanked community representatives, visiting politicians and officials of corporate partner Open Text for their support. Dean of arts Ken Coates spoke about the "exciting" future for a campus that has also drawn involvement from the University of Western Ontario and now OCAD University (the College of Art and Design). MP Gary Schellenberger, MPP John Wilkinson, and Open Text's Tom Jenkins also spoke.

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Correct admissions figures, and more

Some admissions numbers in yesterday's Daily Bulletin were badly mangled, because I misread a table provided by the office of institutional analysis and planning. "The figures for new admits are missing the Canadian non-OSS (non-Ontario high school) new admits," says Mary Soulis of IAP. The other two categories are Canadian OSS and international students. Forgetting the Canadian non-OSS students meant a total of 879 new first-year students left out of the total that I quoted. So the number I gave, 5,508, should really be 6,387: quite a difference. And projections are that the figure will shake down to 5,971, not just 5,194, by the official enrolment count date of November 1.

"As a result of your misreading of the data," says a note from Soulis, "I have added 'New Admits Total' columns to the future reports. I am sure that others besides you will find it useful. We will be releasing updated numbers this week as we are pulling data off of the system today." Meanwhile, she breaks down the 5,971 figure by faculty: 442 in applied health sciences, 1,348 in arts, 1,405 in engineering, 136 in software engineering, 520 in environment, 1,146 in mathematics, 19 in computing and financial management, and 955 in science. That’s not counting 223 students in the math and English language preparatory program, 5 in the arts preparatory program, and 67 at the Dubai campus.

In other matters (and quoting figures that I am pretty sure are correct), the co-op department reports that "our final Spring term employment rate is 94.2%, a full percentage point better than the previous term." Some 4,404 students had jobs this term (most of them ending their work weeks last Friday, August 27), and I'm told that UW itself, which is traditionally the biggest single employer of co-op students, had 417 of them on the payroll this time round.

Says co-op director Peggy Jarvie: "Considering the record number of students for this Spring term, and the still uncertain economy, this is a notable achievement performed by the participating students and CECS staff. There were 8% more students (361) scheduled out to work in Spring 2010 versus the previous Spring term. Over 400 more students found employment in Spring 2010. There were 285 students in Spring 2010 still unemployed, 27 fewer than those seeking employment last year. Included in the employment numbers are 514 Visa students for Spring 2010 and 387 for Spring 2009. These students had an employment rate slightly lower than the experience of non visa students. Also included in the employment numbers are 412 students on work terms outside Canada versus 361 the Spring term before." Of the 285 unemployed students, 171 were at "junior" levels, 48 at "intermediate" and 66 at "senior"; or looking at it another way, 123 were in engineering, 96 in math and 66 in other faculties.

There's a meeting at noontime today for staff members who might be interested in running for 2010-11 leadership positions in the staff association (other association members are also welcome). It'll start at 12:00 in Needles Hall room 1116. A repeat meeting is set for next Wednesday (in Davis Centre room 1304). "The UWSA Executive Committee nomination deadline of Monday, September 13, is fast approaching," said a memo from the association leadership the other day. "Please take a moment to consider running for one of the available positions: President and three Directors — all of which have two-year terms. You can access the nomination form on the UWSA homepage." Chantel Franklin of alumni affairs, one of the soon-to-be-retiring directors, adds this testimonial: "I have enjoyed my time on the UWSA Executive Committee representing you, Waterloo staff, and I have gained skills both professionally and personally from the experiences I have had as a Director. I have no doubt that you too will benefit from being involved."

The September issue of Chem 13 News, published by the department of chemistry, announces the winners of two chemistry exams for high school students that were written last spring. Top scorer in the Avogadro Exam, for students with “no more than 100 hours of instruction in Chemistry”, was Xiaotian He of Henry Wise Wood High School in Calgary. Top scorer in the Chem 13 News Exam, for more senior students, was Jason Kwok of the University of Toronto Schools. T-shirts and other prizes have been distributed, and some of the high scorers in the senior competition were offered research assistantships at UW for the 2010-11 year.

The university's development office is now hiring student development associates — “an integral part of Waterloo’s annual giving program,” a memo from Kathy Prpic of development points out. “Callers contact alumni, parents, and friends of the university to help raise support for the university’s priority projects. Pay starts at $10.25 per hour. Students can apply online.”

And . . . police have not identified a man who was killed at about 2:30 yesterday afternoon when a car struck his bicycle on University Avenue beside the campus. Both car and bike were eastbound along the avenue, heading from Westmount Road toward Seagram Drive and the south campus main entrance. Traffic on that side of University Avenue was blocked for several hours while Waterloo Regional Police investigated. It's the 11th traffic death in the Region this year, and the first of a cyclist.

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Materials that can remember many things

a release from the university's media relations office

A new "smart materials" process — Multiple Memory Material Technology — developed by engineering researchers promises to revolutionize the manufacture of diverse products such as medical devices, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), printers, hard drives, automotive components, valves and actuators.

The breakthrough technology will provide engineers with much more freedom and creativity by enabling far greater functionality to be incorporated into medical devices such as stents, braces and hearing aids than is currently possible.

Smart materials, also known as shape memory alloys, have been around for several decades and are well known for their ability to remember a pre-determined shape.

Traditional memory materials remember one shape at one temperature and a second shape at a different temperature. Until now they have been limited to change shape at only one temperature. Now with the new Waterloo technology they can remember multiple different memories, each one with a different shape.

"This ground-breaking technology makes smart materials even smarter," said Ibraheem Khan, a research engineer and graduate student working with Norman Zhou, a professor of mechanical and mechatronics engineering. "We have developed a technology that embeds several memories in a monolithic smart material. In essence, a single material can be programmed to remember more shapes, making it smarter than previous technologies."

The patent pending technology, which is available for licensing, allows virtually any memory material to be quickly and easily embedded with additional local memories.

The transition zone area can be as small as a few microns in width with multiple zones, each having a discrete transition temperature. As the processed shape memory material is subject to changing temperature, each treated zone will change shape at its respective transition temperature. As well, transition zones created side-by-side allow for a unique and smooth shape change in response to changing temperature.

Several prototypes have been developed to demonstrate this pioneering technology. One mimics a transformer robot. The robot's limbs transform with increasing temperature at discrete temperatures, whereas in conventional shape memory technology this is limited to only one transformation temperature. A video demonstrating the miniature robot can be seen online.

The engineering technology was developed in the Centre for Advanced Materials Joining, based in Waterloo's department of mechanical and mechatronics engineering.

CAR

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