Guest speaker Nicholas Zacchia
This year’s edition of Engineering Week will feature a talk by Nicholas Zacchia at 2 p.m. on Thursday, March 5 in Room 3.210 of the John Molson School of Business Building (MB).
A graduate of Concordia’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, Zacchia is now working toward his PhD at TRIUMF, Canada’s national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics, where he is studying ways to develop new tracers for medical imaging. He will discuss what engineering students can hope to accomplish with their degrees.
Robots battle it out
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE Concordia) just hosted its second edition of Robowars. Contestants had to build their own autonomous robot, with the only parameters being that it had to fit into a 20 x 20 cm square, and weigh no more than 3 kilograms.
“It’s like a sumo fight, except with robots instead of people,” said Michael Segev, former president of IEEE Concordia and current Robowars organizer.
This robot fight was not remote-controlled. Participants had to use onboard circuitry — a chip called a microcontroller — to program their robots with a sort of artificial intelligence.
“They have to be autonomous,” Segev says. “That means, once you turn them on, you can no longer communicate with the robot.”
To win Robowars, participants must have their robots push the other robot out of the arena. The robot that manages to stay within the boundaries wins. The competition gives engineering students an opportunity to build an embedded system and to show off their passion for the field.
“It’s really a test of how well the machine is designed, and how well it’s programmed,” Segev says. “It puts together a lot of different skill sets.”
“In engineering, anything is possible,” says Tristan Cool, director of competitions at IEEE Concordia. “We pride ourselves on introducing new students and giving tutorials.”
Students don’t have to be in their final year to participate. They can join a team or find a mentor. IEEE Concordia gives tutorials at the B-Annex. The group also hosts an open lab five days a week where students can come and ask questions and make use of the equipment.
“Sometimes it’s really important to leave the classroom and find that community of thinkers,” Cool says.
Learn more about what’s going on at Concordia’s Engineering Week.