Every spring, the University of Waterloo hosts a Mechatronics Design Symposium. Mechatronics is a fairly new discipline that combines mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and computer science, and focuses on teams designing, building, and testing products. And when I say “products,” I mean robots. Pretty awesome.
This year, the Symposium will showcases a prototypes designed and built by a team of fourth year Mechatronics Engineering students.
The problem
Nuclear power plant boiler rooms are a harsh environment for humans to work in, but plant maintenance must be performed.
The solution
Design a system to take measurements in the boiler room as well as conduct important preventative maintenance. In other words: build a robot! Yay!
The solvers
Adam Heins has been doing embedded firmware and application development, working on the Pebble Smartwatch and an upcoming home automation product from Nest.
Rahul Rawat worked with Apple, developing a high precision measurement tool for the iPhone and with Clearpath, developing future automated vehicles and open source solutions for the PR2 humanoid.
Eric Shi has been interning for Apple, working with the Mac Hardware team in Cupertino, California.
Wesley Fisher has been doing work involving robotics and AI.
Jesse Lopes has been working on various projects designing, modifying and troubleshooting machine cells and tasks, such as increased cycle time, tool life and cell cleanliness.
The team is working under the supervision of Prof. Sanjeev Bedi and Prof. Baris Fidan.
We are delighted to support this project through the UPS Battery Center Sponsorship.
