Students design bold campus gateway

by Karen Kawawada, Communications and Public Affairs

The gateway to Waterloo campus will be clearer, more inviting, more sustainable, and perhaps more inspiring by next year.

The results of the i3 Challenge student design competition were announced yesterday, and the winning team has a grand vision (pictured above) of how to turn the university's main entrance into what they call “space to inspire.”

The design of Team Inove, consisting of Amer Abu-Khajil and Jacqueline Doucet, both third-year civil engineering students, and Nader Alkadri and Josh Layton, both fourth-year urban planning students, focuses on a “grand pedestrian concourse,” to be located on the northwest corner of Seagram Drive and University Avenue.

“It’s supposed to be an inviting, inclusive space for students and all users,” said Abu-Khajil.

The concourse would include a large “uWaterloo” sign, seating, and wooden arches. The sign, composed of large steel letters, would be floodlit and raised, with the base serving as a planter and seating. It would be readily visible from University Avenue.

The arches would be modular, so the inspiring messages or facts inscribed on them could be changed.

“You’re walking through them, and as you get closer and closer to campus, you gain this understanding of where you’re going and what you’re going to accomplish at the university,” said Alkadri.

The team’s design emphasizes sustainability. Pervious concrete, developed at Waterloo’s Centre for Pavement and Transportation Technology, would be used to pave the concourse, decreasing stormwater runoff. The green space would use native plants and drought-resistant xeriscaping. There would be an effort to use recycled materials.

There is also an emphasis on pedestrian and cyclist access, with a scramble crossing for pedestrians, and clearly marked bike lanes.

The $100,000 project will be funded by the Region of Waterloo and the Faculty of Environment.

“We were impressed by all the presentations, but I think the deciding factor for Team Inove was the elegance of their design, the simplicity of the design – really, the environment it creates in the entranceway to campus,” said i3 Challenge committee chair Jeff Casello, a professor in the faculties of environment and engineering.

Now that a winner has been chosen, another phase of work is about to begin – this time, with more help from the university.

“We need to translate the vision the students have presented today into contract documents that can be sent to tender,” said Casello, adding that his personal goal is to have a construction contractor chosen by early 2012, with the work to be done by the fall of that year.

The i3 Challenge – standing for Innovate, Integrate, Implement – marks the first time, to Casello’s knowledge, that a North American university has used a student competition to design an element of its campus. There are plans for similar challenges in the future.

Taking part in the competition “taught me what it’s like to work in the real world,” and winning is just “icing on the cake,” said Alkadri. But the best part is the enduring impact on Waterloo. “It’s going to be so cool, coming back to the school, and being, like, ‘That’s mine.’”

Two other teams were also recognized as runners-up: Team Vier (right) and Team IDN (left).

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SDE students tackle sports design

University of Waterloo engineering students are displaying product designs this week that offer innovative solutions to challenges in sports as diverse as bike racing, judo, dragon boating, and tennis.

On Friday, 12 student groups in a third-year systems design engineering course will present a product design exhibition on sports engineering. The event runs from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. in room 1301 of the William G. Davis Computer Research Centre.

"We want to improve the quality of sports engineering and make life better for athletes," said John Zelek, professor of systems design engineering and event organizer. "The students were asked to select a challenge in a sports activity and come up with an effective solution."

The design prototypes address a variety of challenges:

• improving synchronization for dragon boating
• harnessing spectator energy in stadiums to power electronic devices
• providing self-performance monitoring tools for swim training 
• improving communications for ice hockey practices
• reducing skidding in bicycle racing 
• detecting a basketball referee’s gestures automatically
• finding a low-cost method to detect if a ball is in or out for tennis
• designing karate floor mats that minimize injury
• designing a weight-lifting bench press that does not require a spotter
• designing a mechanical judo training mechanism 
• re-designing a rock-climbing glove to combat weather conditions

The student groups were each required to select a problem area, identify a design problem objective, and solicit needs from stakeholders. This laid the groundwork for the innovative concepts that were prototyped for display at Friday’s exhibit.

The course and theme meet several engineering design learning objectives. They expose students to real-world issues that may lead to cost-effective solutions. They also show that engineering plays a key role in society, improving the quality of life for all.

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Waterloo girls create winning games

University of Waterloo students have triumphed in the Games4Girls Competition for the second year in a row.

Waterloo teams not only took the top spot and the prize of $2,000 at this year's competition, they also took second place (and $1,500), and received an honourable mention as well. Their faculty advisor was computer science lecturer Lori Case.

In this contest, hosted by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, teams of up to four female university or college students are challenged to create computer games that will appeal to senior public school or high school girls.

The contestants all use Game Maker, a PC-based game-development tool that allows novice designers to create interesting games with basic technical skills, while providing a built-in programming language so more advanced users can customize their game program.

The winning games may be downloaded from the contest website (click on Winners).

First-place team members, for “Prince” (pictured):

• Denise Chan (science)
• Wing Shan (Sara) Kam (CS)

Second-place team members, for “Korora”:

• Estelle Wan Pang Cheung (CS)
• Christine Li (CS)
• Komal Sandhu (CS)

Honourable Mention team members, for “Love Adventure”:

• Yeming Ma (mathematics)
• Jennifer Qiao (CS)
• Sammy Zhang (CS)
• Sasa Zhong (mathematics)

Results were announced on April 25, but because it was end of term and the students were writing exams and moving to their co-op positions at the time, the details were collected only recently, says computer science professor Nancy Day, chair of the Women in Computer Science committee.

 “It's worth noting that in this year's contest, the students had only a few weeks to prepare their games and it was at the busiest time of year,” Day says. “In previous years, the contest started in December with a deadline of March. This year, the contest started in mid-March with a deadline for submission of mid-April.

“This year, as well, there were the highest number of participants ever in the competition: 31 teams for a total of 80 team members from 18 different universities. Our teams did exceptionally well!”

CPA staff

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