Future engineers gather for capstone competition at Ontario Tech University

It’s research week at Ontario Tech University in Oshawa — and with that comes the Engineering Capstone Competition.

The event brings the brilliant minds of future engineers together to show off their stuff in a variety of categories — ideas they’ve been working on for the past four years.

Dean of engineering and applied science Hossam Kishawy says the competition is a culmination of the inventions graduate students have been working on for the past four years.

“Students will use all the knowledge they have learned during the four years that will innovate or provide a solution to an engineering problem,” says Kishawy.

Whether it’s a solution to a problem or a new creation, the collection of engineers knew their assignment — and literally dug into this one.

One team had what looked like a remote control excavator on site — almost — but on a bigger scale. Their invention was created to help get drivers out of construction vehicles — with the theory to tele-operate the heavy machinery using your arm.

Co-creator Tiran Dazi was demonstrating the tech at the event, with wires running up his arm as he communicated with the vehicle. He says they wanted to create something that makes it easier for people to get into the field — while staying safe as well.

“The first goal is to get the operator away from the excavator, which we achieve with tele-operation. And the second goal is to make this task more accessible to people,” says Dazi.

There were 44 projects entered into the competition, with teams of up to six students and a mentor. It was all part of the students’ final year in engineering programs, including the department of automotive and mechatronics engineering and the department of mechanical and manufacturing engineering.

One of those categories was an idea that could help a growing industry — vertical farming. Using mechatronics, the team co-founded by Nicholas Varas created a robot that can move vertically and horizontally across a production line. The creation uses artificial intelligence to help monitor the progress of plants in a vertical farming environment.

The technology could be used in a variety of environments, including cannabis facilities and indoor greenhouse setups.

Varas says the idea, which sprouted their company, Moduleaf, uses a camera and sensors to monitor the plants.

“We minimize the amount of labour used to monitor these crops, but also provide real-time adjustments to lighting, nourishment to save on utility costs as well,” says Varas.

One invention that could really grow on you has the potential to help homeowners take care of that pesky chore we love to hate — weeding. Using technology we already see with Roomba vacuums and autonomous lawnmowers, the team put together a robot that can identify and pull weeds from your lawn.

The event also hosted students from the department of electrical, computer and software engineering. Projects in this category included a wireless charging bot for electric vehicles, giving an option to property owners to allow a vehicle to deliver charging capabilities to cars.

From land to air, some ideas really took off as well, whether it was a drone that was also a car or a prototype fan being created for a local company to help achieve lift like a helicopter. This concept was being created with startup company Horizon Aircraft, currently working on an EV aircraft. It is already working with partners such as the U.S. air force, as they aim to put into production a plane that lifts up like a helicopter — but can also take off.

And when they needed someone to help create the piece that would do just that, they came to Ontario Tech.

Natalie Shears, an engineering student at the school, was the project manager.

“It hovers, almost like a helicopter, kind of vertically. There’s a bunch of fans inside of the wing,” says Shears.

“When it lifts up kind of like a helicopter, and then it flies forward like a plane.”

This display of students’ skill is just another example of what can come out of the school. Earlier this year, students from the automotive engineering program were displaying their Project Arrow at the Canadian International Auto Show in Toronto. The autonomous electric vehicle was created in partnership with the Automotive Parts and Manufacturers Association, the federal government and other stakeholders.

Another invention that got people shaking with excitement, and won the top prize in its category, was a vibration monitoring system. Marc Lopez, who was on the team, says they worked with partner A2DL labs to give companies a way to monitor equipment using vibration and AI tech.

“Whatever vibration data we have will be sent to some machine learning algorithm. It uses live methodology of predictive maintenance,” says Lopez.

The capstone competition put the best of the best in one room, all with one directive: to help solve a problem and create something innovative. It was the first in person since before the pandemic and was impressive for students who took part.

“I’m blown away by the rest of the capstones,” said Shears. “All of them are really well done and polished for students, before we are engineers that hit the market.”

It’s all part of engineering a path toward their future careers.