Congratulations May 2019 Graduates!

Congratulations to all of our recent graduates who received their degrees on May 29th, 2019! To celebrate our 2019 spring graduates, the Department hosted a graduation reception where outstanding students were recognized with awards for their academic and design achievements. A special congratulations to all our award winners; see below for a list of recipients as well as a gallery of the reception.

AWARDS

Major Awards

Letson Prizes

The Letson Prizes are given to the Head of the Graduating Class for each Option. We would like to recognize these students for their achievements within their area:

Albert Kong | General stream of Mechanical Engineering
Jose Martinez-Castro | Biomedical Engineering
Alexander von Schulmann | Mechatronics
Cole Dunn-Apeldoorn | Thermofluids

Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering Gold Medal

The CSME Gold Medal is given for overall outstanding achievement. This year’s winner is Lucas Caparini.

The Engineers and Geoscientists BC Achievement Award in Engineering

This award is given to one graduating student in each Department who shows great promise. This year’s winner is Albert Kong.

Dale CHERCHAS Memorial Prize

This award is endowed in memory of Dr. Dale Cherchas, a leading researcher in the field of Mechanical Engineering, and recognizes the top student in the area of Controls & Dynamics. This year’s recipient is Yue Niu.

Philipp Krebs Award for Perseverance

This award celebrates undergraduate students who have demonstrated great perseverance and determination throughout their degree. The award is named after one of our former students, Philipp Krebs, who recognized the importance of education and believed that a motivated person could reach great heights through perseverance. This year’s recipients are Mallory Savich.

Capstone Design Award

The instructors of MECH 45X chose two teams as “best” this year since they felt, for quite different reasons, that they both exemplified stellar performance in innovation and design practice.

SeaStar

The first team is T-23, sponsored by SeaStar. The design goal of the SeaStar Project was to develop a novel motor controller and bespoke brushless DC motor architecture as a drop-in upgrade to the client’s current brushed DC motor solution. The upgraded package provides 50% more speed at the same torque with potential for improved power-scaling over the current solution.

Team members:

Lucas Caparini
Jason Hu
Kodai Kashima
Susanne Kim
Alex von Schulmann

Race Face

The second team, T-20, sponsored by Race Face. Race Face, a local company that produces components for the mountain bike sector, wanted a novel pedal binding mechanism with a competitive advantage. The Capstone team designed a pedal system that decouples the engagement and disengagement force adjustments between shoe and pedal, a feature that had never before been available on the market.

Team members:

Eric Kupp
Carsten Lapointe
Damian Parlee
Simon Szoke
Luke Trainor

We congratulate both teams for their awards, and, indeed all teams in capstone for their outstanding work this past year. Thank you to all the industry members who have been involved in capstone as sponsors, advisors, and judges.

David NIKKEL Memorial Prize in Engineering Design

This award is given to one graduating student who has excelled in design throughout their 4th year. The instructors of MECH 45X Capstone course agreed that Jason Hu, a general stream student, should be this year’s recipient. Jason was a member of the SeaStar team.

Leadership Awards

The Department would also like to recognize outstanding student leaders. The following students have continually excelled in being effective leaders among their peers and in their communities.

Jordan Fong
Jason Hu
Nicholas Hui
Kirsten Meng
Adrien Noble
Damian Parlee
Diego Pinto

Mechanical Engineering Outstanding Student Leader Award

The Outstanding Student Leader Award recognizes the top undergraduate student who demonstrated strong leadership skills and has made outstanding contributions to the Department and Faculty, specifically in the realms of student affairs, design competition teams, professional association student chapters, and other related activities.

The 2019 Mechanical Engineering Outstanding Student Leader Award for Undergraduate Students is being awarded to Daniel Granger.Daniel has served as the Co-Captain of the Baja Student Team for the past two years. He has demonstrated exemplary leadership skills in leading his team to competition and representing the Department. Throughout his degree, he has continually given his time and effort to contribute to the betterment of our Department, the University, and the student engineering community as a whole.