{"id":7625,"date":"2013-09-18T08:50:14","date_gmt":"2013-09-18T15:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=7625"},"modified":"2013-09-17T11:10:09","modified_gmt":"2013-09-17T18:10:09","slug":"camosun-mechanical-engineering-showcase-brings-a-bit-of-television-drama-to-interurban-campus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2013\/09\/18\/camosun-mechanical-engineering-showcase-brings-a-bit-of-television-drama-to-interurban-campus\/","title":{"rendered":"Camosun Mechanical Engineering Showcase brings a bit of television drama to Interurban campus"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everyone has ideas. 3D printing filament extruders, for example. Who hasn\u2019t daydreamed of making those? Uh\u2026 who knows what those are? Well, the students involved in Camosun\u2019s annual Mechanical Engineering Showcase do, and they\u2019re ready to show off their ideas in physical form.<\/p>\n

Every year, second-year mechanical engineering students get a chance to display their inventions at the showcase; this year, it includes things such as the aforementioned extruders, modular GoPro camera mounts, a grain packaging center, a programmable industrial coffee grinder, and a custom four-axis CNC table. All of it sounds awesome, if incomprehensible, and the behind-the-scenes of how the showcase got to where it is today is just as fascinating.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have something called a \u2018technical defence,\u2019\u201d says Camosun mechanical engineering faculty instructor Jeff Stephen, who is serving as head of the student showcase. \u201cWe bring a panel of engineering experts; they\u2019re either professors or industry engineers or research specialists. The panel comes in and the students have a half an hour to explain the inspiration, the design, the manufacturing, and demonstrate their product. The industry marks them on it and it\u2019s directly 10 percent of their final grade.\u201d<\/p>\n

This approach not only helps students validate their accomplishments, it also makes the whole process fun\u2026 and reminiscent of a certain popular television show.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Students check out the goods at last year\u2019s Mechanical Engineering Showcase (photo by Camosun College AV Services).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the same feel as Dragons\u2019 Den<\/i>,\u201d says Stephen, \u201cwhere they come into a room that\u2019s cleared out except for the panel sitting there in the middle and their desks, and they stand at the front and they have a full presentation to go through, and then the panel is open to grilling them with questions. It\u2019s pretty neat.\u201d<\/p>\n

And who knows? Maybe with all the excitement and this reality-show vibe, the Mechanical Engineering Showcase could soon be coming to a small screen near you soon.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always thought that it would be neat to tempt a film crew to come out and say, \u2018Huh, we might have a reality show on our hands,\u2019 because the excitement and the progress of the projects could really be good TV.\u201d<\/p>\n

But dreams of television stardom aside, the showcase will show off what Stephen calls \u201cabsolutely stunning visuals.\u201d As a matter of fact, if people didn\u2019t know better, they would assume these products were purchased, not made on campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe finish on the products is amazing,\u201d he says. \u201cYou\u2019d walk up to this and say, \u2018Okay, well, that\u2019s cheating. Where\u2019d you buy it? I want to buy one.\u2019 No, actually, we built it. We started with absolutely no ideas and then in three months we\u2019ve built what looks like a commercial product.\u201d<\/p>\n

And not only do the products look good, but attendees can test some of them out to see if they live up to their shine and sheen.<\/p>\n

\u201cStudents will be encouraging people to try them out,\u201d says Stephen. \u201cWe have a lacrosse trainer that will be available to use. The GoPro camera\u2026 you can grab these products, try them out. The scrummaster has a force readout, so they will be taking hit counts to see who has the strongest push.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, students can practice their scrum techniques, and there\u2019s another added potential bonus for students who have their work in the showcase: employment.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost students will be on the job market right away, although a few still have co-op terms to do,\u201d explains Stephen. \u201cA lot of employers do come out to this event, and the students all have r\u00e9sum\u00e9s at the ready, and sometimes offers are made. We\u2019ve had companies fly out from Alberta to specifically come and see this event, and they\u2019ve had job fairs on the spot.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Mechanical Engineering Showcase<\/strong>
\n10 am-2 pm\u00a0Friday, September 20
\nInterurban campus\u00a0basketball court<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everyone has ideas. 3D printing filament extruders, for example. Who hasn\u2019t daydreamed of making those? Uh\u2026 who knows what those are? Well, the students involved in Camosun\u2019s annual Mechanical Engineering Showcase do, and they\u2019re ready to show off their ideas in physical form. Every year, second-year mechanical engineering students get a chance to display their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7626,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus","category-september-18-2013"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7625"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7632,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7625\/revisions\/7632"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}