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A group of fourth-year Mechanical Engineering students is bound for
Halifax to represent the Faculty in the Canadian Society of
Manufacturing Engineers’ National Design Competition.
Working with Drs. Kourosh Sabri and Kam Kassiri from the U of A’s
Department of Ophthalmology, the students designed an ocular implant
device that will improve surgical outcomes for patients with
strabismus—a condition where the eyes are not properly aligned with
each other. Forty per cent of patients require additional surgeries to
correct the problem. The doctors wanted an implant device that would
align muscles properly and be much less invasive on the eye, and
minimize or eliminate the need for surgery.
Students Ryan Galloway, Jeb Molcak, Michael Otto, and Benjamin
Sunderland walked away with the overall award at the MecE 460 Capstone
Honours Awards Banquet and compete nationally in June. The team is
supervised by Dr. Yongsheng Ma.
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A fourth-year Environmental Engineering design team from the ENV E 440
course was one of the final four teams in the Metcalf & Eddy’s
2008–2009 Academic Design Competition. The competition centres on a
water or wastewater treatment plant design and is open to students in
civil and environmental engineering in a U.S. or Canadian university
who are taking a capstone design course.
With 13 teams in the competition this year, the U of A team was the
only Canadian team among the four finalists. The team did
preliminary designs of a drinking water treatment plant based on
specified requirements on water quality, plant footprint, and cost
analysis.
The team members are Siddharth Masand, Rui Huang, Joven Uy, Mike
Walker, and Jason Woo. Dr. Z. Michael Wang, vice president
of Hazen and Sawyer (a U.S. environmental consulting firm), visited the
U of A for a week and advised all students who took the course on their
design projects. Dr. Tong Yu teaches the course, assisted by Kusumakar
Sharma. |
