Amy Kehoe and Andrew Ollerhead
Congratulations to Engineering students Amy Kehoe and Andrew Ollerhead for another win in their second Atlantic Engineering Competition in January.
After winning the Junior Design competition last year, this year the pair competed in the Reengineering category, where the competitors from Atlantic universities are presented with an existing product and given the task of improving it. This category is open to individuals or teams of two students in any year of an engineering program.
The Reengineering competition has two parts. Students have seven days to complete the first project; they receive the second assignment on the day of competition and are given just eight hours to complete it. The second case is the focus of the competition and is worth significantly more points than the first.
The theme this year was modifying products to allow them to perform tasks beyond their original design. For case one, students took a standard hair dryer and redesigned it as a two-in-one product that could also be used to iron clothes.
For the second assignment, students integrated a new mechanism into an existing medical rollator walker, enabling users to lift heavy items. This mechanism enables users with limited mobility to pick up objects from ground level to table height without having to bend over.
At the end of the eight-hour design period, teams each submitted a PowerPoint presentation and a written report containing their solutions. They presented their solutions to a panel of five engineering industry judges and defended their designs during a question period.
In March, Amy and Andrew will compete at the Canadian Engineering Competition, hosted by University of New Brunswick in Fredericton. The Atlantic event was hosted by Université de Moncton.
Congratulations also go to SMU Engineering students Erin Burke and Allie Nicholson for placing second in the debate category. They have also earned a spot to compete in the Canadian Engineering Competition.
Amy Kehoe a third-year student in the combined Diploma in Engineering and BSc program, plans to complete her Bachelor of Engineering in electrical engineering at Dalhousie. The Perth, Ont. native plans to enter the workforce and eventually take an MBA. She would like to focus her career on helping to improve the reliability of electricity in communities and to encourage growth in environmentally friendly power generation sectors.
Andrew Ollerhead, originally from Sackville, NB, is a third-year student in the Diploma in Engineering and BSc combined program. He will graduate this spring and finish a Bachelor of Engineering in mechanical engineering at Dalhousie. He plans to follow his BEng with graduate studies focusing on aeronautical engineering. His career goals include working on improving aerodynamic efficiency of aircraft, with a particular focus on improving performance of nonrigid aircraft as would be found (for example) in kite-powered wind energy facilities.
The Atlantic Engineering Competition (AEC) is an annual student-run initiative that began in 1983 and has grown to become one of the largest and highly anticipated engineering competitions in Canada, and the largest one in Atlantic Canada. This year l'Université de Moncton brought together more than 130 of the brightest student engineers from all 13 member societies across the Maritimes to compete in one of eight different competition categories. The top two team from AEC move on to nationals, the Canadian Engineering Competition. For more information, visit their website at: cag2022aec.com.