October 13, 2017 – To address challenges ranging from ensuring aircraft safety and reliability to improving social media analysis, a diverse range of companies all come to the same place: the University of Toronto Institute for Multidisciplinary Design & Innovation (UT-IMDI).

Founded in 2012 by Professor Kamran Behdinan (MIE), UT-IMDI catalyzes multidisciplinary collaborations between engineering students and industry partners. Undergraduate and MEng students apply for paid internships lasting several months, providing engineering solutions for companies in a variety of sectors. The students get a vibrant experiential learning environment, while partner companies benefit by leveraging innovative new ideas and identifying potential future talent.

“UT-IMDI is a cornerstone in our Faculty’s strategy to prepare students to be competitive in a complex global engineering environment,” said Tom Coyle, U of T Engineering vice-dean, undergraduate. “Congratulations to our students on completing these innovative projects — I hope you are as proud of your accomplishments as we are.”

This year more than 75 companies partnered with UT-IMDI. On Oct. 10, 2017, students and industry partners gathered to celebrate the completion of 25 projects and recognize Jon Novacek (CompE 0T2), recipient of the 2017 UT-IMDI Recognition Award.

“For engineering students and professionals alike, working on real-world problems is the ultimate,” said Novacek. “Working with the students, helping them develop their technical and professional capabilities, and watching them bring a fresh mindset to our challenges is both enriching and refreshing.”

Meet three students working across disciplines to address industry challenges:

Beston Leung (Year 3 CompE)

Client: Safran Electronics Canada

Project: Safran makes aircraft landing gear and control systems — and safety is its top priority. Leung developed a set of resources to facilitate safety and reliability analysis during multiple project phases, including bid, preliminary and detailed design. He created a component library containing all parts and their respective failure rates, which is used to perform fault tree analysis.

Takeaway: “The highlight of the project is that I know what I did will be used by the company in the future in other projects. This gives me an immense sense of achievement,” said Leung.

 

Anna Bucholc (MIE MEng candidate)

Client: Pratt & Whitney Canada

Project: Bucholc worked on two projects: she performed detailed finite element analysis of highly stressed locations in an aircraft engine to optimize performance, and collected and analyzed data on displacement for a rig system simulating vibration of a Jeffcott rotor model.
Takeaway: “I had an exceptional working experience at Pratt & Whitney Canada,” said Bucholc. “The people are really friendly, helpful and very knowledgeable. I worked closely with my supervisors and a research fellow — they encouraged a dynamic and practical learning environment even when they had busy schedules.”

 

Herman Chandi (Year 3 IndE)

Client: Bombardier Aerospace

Project: When the unexpected happens on Bombardier aircraft — such as aborted takeoffs or emergency landings — operators file incident data reports. Chandi’s project was to analyze the current mechanisms for mining these aircraft incident data sets and optimize it by restructuring the process, automating some elements, and also rewriting much of the code.

Takeaway: “I really enjoy working with data and I also found the process optimization aspect of this project very interesting. I’m currently in 3rd year so I’m planning on going on my Professional Experience Year (PEY) next year — I think on PEY, I’d like to work in these areas in a different context to get a wider variety of experience,” said Chandi. “Ultimately, as I learned on this project, what I really enjoy the most is working on difficult problems and making the world around me work better, whether it be processes, work flows, or organizations.”

October 13, 2017 – The Toronto Star’s Rosie DiManno recently wrote a column on MIE alumnus and newly crowned Miss Universe Canada, Lauren Howe (IndE 1T6). “Howe’s personal spectrum of accomplishments and interests would likely surprise many. That engineering ring on her finger has been hard won. ‘I’ve had people ask me, oh, nice ring, did you buy that?’ No, she earned it with a degree in industrial engineering from the University of Toronto,” writes DiManno.

“When I say I’m an engineer, people are surprised. And I want that to be different for my future daughters.” said Howe. “Taking engineering was my point to prove I can do it, I can talk the talk, I can walk the walk. I’m definitely more interested in the business side of things but I wanted to understand what business engineers do. So when I work with engineers, I’ll have credibility.”

Read more at the Toronto Star.

October 12, 2017 – Professor Amy Bilton recently joined host Steve Paikin on TVO’s The Agenda to discuss and champion women in the engineering profession. The discussion revolved around the changing face of engineering, and how the demand for skilled talent is ever-growing – however, there aren’t enough women in those sectors. The Agenda welcomed three generations of women engineers, including Professor Bilton, all 2017 recipients of Engineers Canada Awards, who have experience making their way in a profession long dominated by men.

October 11, 2017 – MIE alumnus Ahmed Mahmoud (MechE 1T1, MASc 1T6) and his former supervisor Professor Amy Bilton have won a $50,000 prize for Innovative Agricultural Solutions in Nepal, for their  startup company, Spero Analytics. The USAID/Feed The Future Data-Driven Farming Prize recognizes innovative solutions that help Nepal’s smallholder farmers improve productivity and make informed decisions using actionable data insights. Spero Analytics won the award for demonstrating significant potential for their wireless solar mesh network to communicate soil moisture data to agricultural extension services and research organizations.

 

September 19, 2017 – Alison Olechowski recently joined MIE as an Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, and is cross-appointed to the Institute for Leadership Education in Engineering (ILead). In her short time at U of T Engineering, she has already begun to accomplish her teaching focus: giving students the tools and confidence to become engineering leaders.

This fall, in addition to teaching an MEng course, she will be supervising a MIE491 Capstone team.

Professor Olechowski, who completed her PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Mechanical Engineering, studies the processes and tools that teams of engineers use in industry as they design innovative new products. She has studied engineering products and projects in the automotive, electronics, aerospace, medical device and oil and gas industries.

Learn more about Professor Olechowski and what she hopes to accomplish at U of T Engineering:

What is your teaching focus?

This fall, I’m teaching a class for the ELITE Certificate for MEng students called “Leading Engineering Design Projects,” and I think that captures my teaching focus pretty well.

Being co-appointed at MIE and ILead means I get to focus on engineering design – which I really have a passion for teaching – and the ideas of project management. I think those topics lie at the intersection of mechanical and industrial engineering, and leadership.

Why is leadership so important to you and your teaching?

During my PhD, I studied teams of engineers in industry. I studied the ways teams come together to design complex new products with cutting-edge technology. I saw the technical design challenges that the teams were facing, but I also got to see how important leadership, teamwork and strategy were to the success of these projects.

It emphasized for me how important it is that we give engineering students the technical skills that they need, but also equip students the skills they need to work as a team and to flex their leadership skills, so they can have high impact and make change for the better.

On the MIE side, what else are you focusing on?

I’m hoping to advise an MEng student at MIE. I’m interested in continuing studying what methods and tools engineers can use to be more effective designers. One of my big interests right now is collaborative computer-aided design (CAD) software.

Traditionally, CAD modelling was very solitary endeavor, with challenges such as version management and cumbersome installs. In recent years, CAD modeling software has finally caught up to the rest of the world and is starting to build cloud-based collaborative tools, and I think it’s really interesting to look at how you can go from something so solitary to having a team working on, let’s say, designing a 3D model.

We currently don’t understand how these teams should work together or communicate, or even what the composition of their team should be. We don’t even know if these new tools will lead to more innovative, higher quality, or less costly products. That’s something I hope to look at more closely with an MEng student.

Why did you choose U of T Engineering?

I looked for institutions with world-class students, research and teaching. U of T fit that bill for me, and I was excited to be in Toronto.

What do you hope to accomplish as an educator?

Part of my goal is to give students confidence. I want to empower them to tackle problems and remind them that a good engineer doesn’t just have a strong technical foundation.  You also need to know how to lead, how to be creative and how to communicate. That’s what makes a solid engineer.

September 13, 2017 – Startups founded by engineering students are poised to address challenges from sustainability to surgery. Twelve companies pitched their vision to a room of judges, investors and faculty members at the fifth annual Hatchery Demo Day, held September 6 at U of T Engineering.

“Five years after we founded the Hatchery, the spirit of entrepreneurship continues to be the engine of all that we do,” said Joseph Orozco, executive director of The Entrepreneurship Hatchery, in his opening remarks. “We nurture the mindset for entrepreneurial thinking, and we have seeded the ideas that I believe will transform our society. Together, we are building the Canada of tomorrow.”

Demo Day is the culmination of The Hatchery Nest program, a four-month accelerator which pairs student teams with experienced mentors — including executives, lawyers, medical professionals and engineers — to develop their businesses. They receive detailed feedback on their business plans, explore their proposed market, learn about patents and marketing and build prototypes using 3D printers and other fabrication resources. A second Hatchery program, Hatchery Launch Lab, focuses on supporting startups built on graduate-level research in the Faculty.

Of the dozen teams that presented at Demo Day 2017, four took home a share of $42,500 in seed funding, including one $20,000 grand prize and two $10,000 runner-up prizes donated by alumnus Anthony Lacavera (CompE 9T7), founder and chairman of Globalive Holdings and former CEO of WIND Mobile. An additional $2,500 Orozco prize is provided through funds raised by the students themselves.

MIE student Rachel Baker (IndE 1T7 +PEY) won a runner-up prize for her company, Tejo.

$10,000 Lacavera Prize: Tejo — A better way to buy makeup

“You’re supposed to pick from swatches, but different screens render colours differently,” said Rachel Baker (IndE 1T7 +PEY), co-founder of Tejo. “What looks great on your smartphone might not look great in real life.”

Baker and her business partner, fashion management student Lakshmy Subramanian, believe that artificial intelligence and machine learning offer a way forward. Tejo users simply take a selfie, which is then fed into software designed by the pair. Using open-source computer vision and a proprietary algorithm that accounts for ambient lighting conditions, Tejo determines a user’s precise skin tone and recommends an appropriate brand. If the user chooses to buy, Tejo collects a 5 to 10 per cent commission on the sale.

“Before we joined The Hatchery, we were really struggling to get people who don’t wear makeup to understand what our business is,” said Baker. “They provided us with excellent mentors and advisors, and really helped us to get a really clear vision of what we want our company to be.”

The pair plan to use the prize money to file a patent on their software and expand their e-commerce platform, which is already accepting early sign-ups online. Once they have penetrated their target market, they plan to expand their “recommendation engine” approach to other areas, including ethically sourced beauty products and men’s grooming.

September 8, 2017 – On September 6, faculty and staff had the pleasure of welcoming students to their first year at MIE.

Nearly 200 students attended the department’s orientation session, which introduced them to resources readily available to them, including student support at the MIE Undergraduate Office, as well as the weekend machining courses offered at George Brown College. The students also got to meet the department Chair, Markus Bussmann, and were treated to a BBQ lunch where they got to meet and chat with Dean Cristina Amon.

August 16, 2017 – Caring for individuals with dementia often involves managing residents’ disruptive and sometimes dangerous behaviors, including screaming, hitting or kicking. Common measures used in long-term care to circumvent these aggressive acts include antipsychotic medications and personalized therapy programs. But many medications can compromise the well-being of residents, and recreational programs require significant staff time.

A new technology developed by a multidisciplinary team at the University of Toronto, led by MIE professor Mark Chignell, is designed to help calm and engage long-term care residents with dementia and with that, improve their quality of life. Ambient Activity Technologies (AAT) are interactive tools that can be installed on a wall of a facility, where they can be easily accessed by residents with or without staff assistance.

Read more here.

August 8, 2017 – Professor Mark Fox recently co-wrote an op-ed in The Globe and Mail on the country’s intellectual property strategy, and the need for Canada to to become an innovation-based economy.

“To be blunt, Canadians operate in a world where the deck of cards is already dealt and our competitors have all the aces. Nonetheless, if we want to ensure our continuous prosperity and way of life, we must create and scale-up companies, while vigorously defending their freedom to operate in order to grow,” says Fox.

Read more at The Globe and Mail.

August 3, 2017 – Marianne Touchie, an assistant professor in MIE and CivE, is quoted in Motherboard, talking about how climate change and the ensuing increase in temperature is going to cause problems for people living in highrises.

About 1,200 apartment towers in Toronto alone that were built during the post-war period did not worry about energy efficiency and cooling, the article states.

In buildings built between 1945 to 1984, “even the use of air conditioners and fans is not satisfying people from a thermal comfort perspective,” Touchie says in the article, titled, Why Social Housing Units in Cities Will Be Hard Hit by Climate Change.

She’s taking part in a study that monitors environmental conditions in public housing units and offers solutions such as specialized films applied to windows.

“During the heat wave [in Toronto] last summer, over 80 percent of the suites that we monitored had average temperature of over 30°C. [These units] will become unbearable as temperatures continue to rise.”

Read more at Motherboard.