Engineering clubs a path to a future career

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Engineering clubs are created for students and for students. They provide a sandbox that allows future engineers to do new things, sometimes starting with mistakes. The COVID-19 endangered the clubs, but they come back strong and hitting above their weight.

“It’s not something you expect a group of students to take on because of the technical complexity,” says Thomas Ganley, a physical engineering student and member of the AlbertaSat club.

The “something” he’s talking about is creating Alberta’s second satellite, Ex-Alta 2, and preparing it for launch in early 2023. Ex-Alta 2 (part of a group of satellites) will be launched into the International Space Station in January 2023. Image courtesy Nanosats Database

The group working at Ex-Alta 2 is made up of about 100 students with different levels of commitment. They are using the processes, training, leadership and network of a small professional engineering company. And that’s the point. “Technological and technological development, debugging, problem solving, designing or planning the different phases of a mission give you skills that are really useful once you graduate and enter the industry,” says Ganley, the project director.

Oh, and that satellite they built? It also has real-world implications. Ex-Alta 2 (part of a group of satellites) is scheduled to be launched into the International Space Station in January 2023 from Cape Canaveral in Florida. From there, it will be deployed into orbit, where it will monitor ground forest fires, forest fire risk areas, and areas after burning.

AlbertaSat is not the only sandbox where students can play, where they can develop the skills to make a difference.

Other student clubs, such as EcoCar, take on equally massive projects. EcoCar designs, manufactures and then runs a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle each year in the Shell Eco-marathon. Clubs give students room to fail (and try again), says Rafid Khan, a mechanical engineering student and EcoCar project manager.

“A lot of what we do in class is theoretical,” Khan says. “So with EcoCar, a big focus is hands-on experience. If you want to design something, design it. And after you make it, you’ll probably find that it hasn’t lived up to your expectations. But you’ll make mistakes, learn and improve.” .

In the process, students also contribute to a future with less carbon. In April 2023, the EcoCar team will compete against hundreds of other student clubs in the Shell Eco-marathon, which brings together students from around the world to design, build and drive energy-efficient vehicles. But it was touching and going for a minute. The EcoCar team designs, manufactures and then runs a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle each year in the Shell Eco-marathon

From March 2020 to February 2021, like everything else, engineering clubs moved online. Orienting themselves to a design-only approach, they were forced to manage project delays as they actively lost members and struggled to find new students to fill the gaps. Also, the EcoCar competition moved into virtual space, not as much fun as running around with a car you built with your bare hands.

“A big draw for us is being able to offer students hands-on experience in certain types of machinery or welding or carbon fiber manufacturing,” Khan says. “It was hard to keep them close without that.”

With attention elsewhere, group funding also suffered. “EcoCar started to see how its corporate sponsorship calmed down at the start of COVID,” says Khan.

AlbertaSat members fell during the pandemic. “We have an obligation to comply with the Canadian Space Agency and the work needs to be done,” Ganley says. And these experiences affect students beyond college.

“I think about my job as an EcoCar, but in real life,” says Aishwarya Venkitachalam, ’20 BSc (MecEng), an EcoCar student and current mechanical design engineer at Tesla. “Now I’m doing things similar to Tesla, only to a much greater magnitude.”

Venkitachalam, who played various roles at EcoCar from 2016 to 2020, clearly remembers the commute from his co-operative work to campus to work long nights at the club. But the experience allowed her to explore her creativity and gave her confidence when choosing a career in mechanical design.

“My internships and career could not have happened without EcoCar,” says Venkitachalam. “Clubs offer you what companies are looking for: not a superficial understanding of concepts, but a solid understanding that comes from practice. You will bring the experience throughout your career.”

| Per Kalyna Hennig Epp

Kalyna is a journalist for the online journal Folio at the University of Alberta. The University of Alberta is a partner in the publishing content provider Troy Media.

The opinions expressed by our columnists and contributors are solely yours and do not inherently or expressly reflect the opinions of our publication.

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Alberta Technology, Automotive, Automotive Technology, Professional Information, Engineering, Innovation, Space

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