APSC Rising Stars 2019: Bernardo Ruz, MEL '19, Clean Energy Engineering

APSC Rising Stars 2019: Bernardo Ruz, MEL ’19, Clean Energy Engineering

May 17, 2019

“I get inspired by thinking about possible solutions and building different business models. It is interesting how the more you think about solving problems, the easier connecting the dots gets …”

I recently finished my Master of Engineering Leadership (MEL) in Clean Energy Engineering at UBC. For my Capstone Project, I was lucky to have worked with MK Anand and Balpreet Kukreja, two of the smartest people I know. Our project consisted of a real challenge: a UBC parkade is going to introduce a 1-MW solar canopy on the roof to a high-voltage electric vehicle charging infrastructure, a hydrogen production and fuelling station, and battery-based energy storage — how could we make it economically feasible?

Together we had to: research, brainstorm, talk to brilliant teachers, create different logics, input all the information into a self-built model, iterate and optimize every single component of the model… all this to successfully reach an economically feasible business model.

What has made your time at UBC the most memorable?

Definitely my fellow students. Having the opportunity to work with people from all over the world who are really smart, have different perspectives and work experience, but above everything, who have a passion and a vision to change the world has made my time at UBC memorable.

I like to think that I was really lucky to be outsmarted by all my fellow students; this way I was able to improve and learn a lot.

How are you applying the skills you learned through your studies at UBC?

As an entrepreneur, UBC has given me the necessary tools for success. My master’s degree gave me the leadership and technical tools that I am applying today on a daily basis in my new business.

Having been involved with entrepreneurship@UBC has helped me build the business in a lean manner and being always customer centered.

Where do you find your inspiration?

I find inspiration in the day-to-day problems. I get inspired by thinking about possible solutions and building different business models. It is interesting how the more you think about solving problems, the easier connecting the dots gets, and the better your business models become. I would highly recommend it.

What are your plans for the future?

Right after finishing my studies (a few months ago), I went to build my first company with a business model that I have been iterating during the last year. My plan for the near future is to grow this business until its maturity. For the long-term, I will create an NGO that will teach values to kids.

How will you go on to make a difference in our world?

Having a little bit of knowledge in logistics, we know that it is better to improve a system as a whole, rather than each of its components. Is no difference for the world; currently, most countries/companies/communities/people act towards their own self-interests (that is the reason for wars). Instead, if every person in this world was seeking to serve the others, we would live in a much better and peaceful world.

For this reason, as previously mentioned, I will create an NGO to teach kids in a practical way the importance of serving others, because “who does not live to serve, is useless for life” (Mother Theresa of Calcutta).

This story originally appeared on APSC Rising Stars 2019.
Photo credit: Clare Kiernan

MECH Students Showcase their Capstone Projects

May 13, 2019

Upper year Mechanical Engineering students showed off their final Capstone projects at Design + Innovation Day on Thursday, April 4th. This was the final design project of their degrees and their chance to showcase years of learning. The teams displayed their work to industry members, faculty, staff and students on two levels of the Wayne and William White Engineering Design Centre.

Capstone design teams were recognized by their peers for excelling in five categories. The following teams received class awards:

Greenest Prototype: eatART team
Scariest Prototype: Otolaryngology Lab team
Most likely to appear on Dragon’s Den: NuIT Nutrition team
Most Innovative Prototype: FarmFolk team
Students’ Choice Award: SeaStar team

A panel of six industry judges also assessed the capstone projects in order to select the overall winning team. The Race Face project was chosen as the top 2019 project in Mechanical Engineering, and team members Eric Kupp, Carsten Lapointe, Damian Parlee, Simon Szoke, and Luke Trainor received recognition for their accomplishment and a $2500 award at the Applied Science Design and Innovation Day Networking and Awards Reception.  Runners up for the overall winning project were the SeaStar team (Lucas Caparini, Jason Hu, Kodai Kashima, Susanne Kim, Alexis von Schulmann) and the Baja team (Daniel Granger, Adrien Noble, Emrick Rurange, Collin Seib).

The sponsors for this year’s Capstone project were:

UBC Baja Fluor Otolaryngology Lab
Borealis Hevvy Pumps Race Face
Borisoff Lab Houman Dr. Steve Rogak
Calmura Inclusion BC SALA
CARIS Intermetallica SeaStar
eatART Livanova SEEDS
Embrace Orthapaedics Nagamune Lab Sidesaddle
Envision Labs NAME Triumf
FarmFolk NuIT Nutrition Velometro

Congratulations to the winning teams, and to all participating students on the completion of their Capstone projects!

 

Project Gallery

 

Mechanical Engineering Capstone Awards Gallery & APSC Reception

 

Mech Faculty featured in APSC Paper Airplane Workshop + Competition

April 1, 2019

On Friday, March 29th, the Faculty of Applied Science hosted a paper airplane workshop and competition, with insights shared by several Mechanical Engineering faculty members:

Attendees were first treated to four brief but fascinating talks: Dean James Olson on the history and properties of paper; Pete Ostafichuk on paper airplane — or, to be more precise, paper glider — aerodynamics; Rajeev Jaiman on bio-inspired flight; and Nicholas Hui, captain of the UBC AeroDesign team, on the key differences between designing full-sized wooden, and paper aircraft.

Read the full coverage and look through the picture gallery on the APSC website!

‘Help is available’: Student mental health services at UBC

March 25, 2019

Through a pilot project in UBC’s mechanical engineering program, second-year students learn about mental health literacy and understanding the stress response through content embedded in the academic curriculum. Similar initiatives are also underway in nursing, biology and creative writing.

Agnes d’Entremont, mechanical engineering instructor and faculty lead for the pilot project, said the program was developed based on a need for additional support that faculty observed in the classroom.

“The transition to university and higher levels of responsibility in coursework is stressful for a lot of students, especially in intensive programs like engineering,” she explained. “If we really want to see our students succeed in the larger world after university, they’re going to have to deal with stressful situations. So we thought, why don’t we equip them for those challenges?”

Creating A Safer Volleyball

March 20, 2019


Photo: Rich Lam/UBC Thunderbirds

Although volleyball is a limited-contact sport, many volleyball players still sustain concussions from unfortunate encounters with high-speed balls. Now investigators at the University of British Columbia have found that the brand and model of the volleyball that athletes use may play a role in determining their risk of injury.

The researchers observed that despite having nearly identical masses, circumferences and pressures — the ball properties standardized by Fédération Internationale de Volleyball, the international governing body for volleyball — several different official ball models from four different manufacturers lost significantly different amounts of energy when they impacted a surface.

“Our study suggests that both regulated and unregulated properties of volleyballs, such as the thickness and material composition of their walls, influence how forcefully they collide with another object, like a person’s head,” says Florian Schneider, the study’s lead author and a member of UBC’s Orthopaedic and Injury Biomechanics Group at the time the research was conducted.

Schneider and his colleagues first tested the elasticity of the balls, dropping them from a known height onto a concrete floor and using a microphone to measure the time between the first and second bounces. Next, they investigated the balls’ basic mechanical properties, using a materials testing machine to compress each ball until it was deformed by 50 millimetres.

The results showed that each ball’s elasticity — a reflection of the amount of energy lost by the ball upon impact — depended on its model, pressure and incident velocity. They also revealed that the balls varied greatly in their stiffness, their ability to absorb energy and the extent to which each ball returned to its original shape after being compressed, a phenomenon known as hysteresis.

“Further testing in this area could indicate exactly how much each of these factors influences concussion risk,” says  Thomas Oxland, a professor of orthopaedics and mechanical engineering at UBC and an associate director of ICORD, who supervised the study. “This information may ultimately enable the design of safer volleyballs through modifications of their material and mechanical properties.”

Concussions, which result from the rapid acceleration and deceleration of the brain following a blow to the head, may cause long-term psychological disturbances like memory loss and depression — especially if sustained repeatedly. Difficult to diagnose on-site, and likely underreported by athletes eager to return to play, they are a significant public health issue in the realm not only of contact sports, but also of limited-contact ones like volleyball.

The study appeared in the Journal of Sports Engineering and Technology and was conducted in collaboration of the UBC Department of Athletics and Recreation, including the head coaches of the women’s and men’s volleyball teams at UBC.

This story originally appeared on APSC Research Spotlights.

Creating the Next Generation of Bat-Inspired Aircraft

February 28, 2019


The flapping flight dynamics of insects, birds and bats have long been of interest to aeronautical engineers.

From Clément Ader’s pioneering 19th-century flying machines to the present-day Bat Bot and BionicFlyingFox, aircraft design has been influenced by bats for more than 130 years.

Now, a comprehensive 3D computer model of bat wing flapping flight that may enable the creation of nimbler, more aerodynamic drones and airplanes has been developed by researchers at the University of British Columbia and the National University of Singapore.

In addition to improving our understanding of flapping flight mechanisms, the scalable, high-fidelity model could be used to incorporate bat wing-inspired elements into aircraft — and potentially help usher in a new era of aviation along the way.

“Bats can navigate tight spaces and negotiate gusts of wind with apparent ease,” says Rajeev Jaiman, the senior author of the study and a professor of mechanical engineering at UBC. “By understanding how they do what they do, we may be able to design flying devices that operate more effectively than before, including in emergency and military situations.”

Flapping-wing flight offers many advantages over fixed-wing flight, such as reduced noise and greater maneuverability, adaptability and efficiency. And owing to their highly flexible, membrane-like wings, bats offer unique advantages over other flying animals, like the ability to move with a greater degree of freedom than insects or birds.

vortex and flow
When a bat wing flaps, it forms swirling masses of air known as vortex rings — the doughnut-shaped structures shown in the animation to the left. To the right, the clip shows the turbulent paths of air particles as they flow over a bat wing. The different colours indicate how fast the air is travelling (from slower to faster: blue, green, yellow, orange and red).  

So Jaiman and his colleagues created and validated a mathematical framework that captures the complexity of real-life bat flight dynamics and could lay the foundation for the engineering of truly bat-like flying machines. Bat wings bend, twist and otherwise deform in response to turbulent airflow, generating lift, thrust and other forces associated with flight. These structural deformations, and the airflow patterns that are produced, are reflected in the researchers’ sophisticated simulation model.

Previously reported numerical models of bat flapping flight are generally too simplified or otherwise incomplete to be of real practical benefit.

“Bat wings are elastic structures composed of many different parts, and they interact with air in highly variable and aerodynamically complex ways,” says Jaiman. “Our framework reflects key flight dynamics and could serve as a tool for the design and optimization of flexible flapping wings in aerial vehicles.”

Bat, bird and insect flight have been active areas of research for decades. But while insects and birds have received the bulk of the attention, certain features they possess actually make them less useful for human applications. Insect wings, for instance, are limited in size, load capacity and their ability to adapt to different flight environments, while bird wings have porous feathers and other characteristics that currently make their underlying flight principles too difficult to model.

The researchers, whose study was published in Computers & Fluids, are currently working on an AI-enabled “digital twin” for bat flight and will partner with a team at Brown University to develop what may be the most advanced bat-like robot to date.

Media coverage: The Engineer, Interesting Engineering, Phys.org

This story originally appeared on APSC Research Spotlights.

Mech2 Hyperloop Design Challenge – where theory and execution collide

February 13, 2019

On January 23rd, second-year mechanical engineering students faced off in the Hyperloop Rail Challenge, racing their autonomous vehicles around a course with twists, turns and steep grades. This is the first of two design challenges meant to harness their academic learning in practical problem solving of a real-world issue.

According to Mech 2 Coordinator, Dr. Agnes d’Entremont, one of the biggest challenges faced in the development of hyperloop transportation – super fast and energy-efficient transit through a low-friction environment – is that even minor track defects could have devastating impacts at such high speeds. Vehicles in these transportation systems would need to be able to adjust to changes in their track in order to avoid catastrophic derailments or collisions.

Faced with solving this problem, the second-year teams were judged not only on speed while successfully completing the course, but energy efficiency as well – speed was scored against the number of batteries used in order to mimic the hyperloop premise. Teams’ approaches varied: some vehicles took a slow-but-steady route, confidently taking on the turns and hills of the course at the cost of time, while others careened around the track, occasionally resulting in dramatic derailments. The crowd of students in the bleachers surrounding the course enthusiastically cheered on all contenders, often favouring the underdogs that struggled to take an obstacle before finally succeeding. The final round (nicknamed the “mayhem round”) involved groups of teams coordinating their cars to simultaneously take the track without colliding.

The winning vehicle, “The Jewel” had a decisive lead with a score of 97.1, while second place went to Team B3 at a score of 79.0, and “The 1180 Express” took third place with a score of 73.7.

The second-year teams will get another chance to test their mettle in their final design challenge, on April 16th. Stay tuned for further event details and coverage!

Media Mentions

Breakfast Television: https://twitter.com/BT_Vancouver/status/1088478504570646529
Fairchild TV: https://www.fairchildtv.com/english/news.php?n=5e2fd81c8c08b9638bfc5b4d8459b499

 

 

Dr. Robert Rohling Elected IEEE Fellow

January 10, 2019

The Department of Mechanical Engineering would like to congratulate faculty member Dr. Robert Rohling, who was elected a Fellow of the IEEE as of January 1st in recognition for “for contributions to ultrasound for medical diagnosis and intervention.” The IEEE is an international organization that fosters innovation in engineering and technology for global benefit, and Fellowship is a recognition of high accomplishment in a recipient’s field given only to a few outstanding members.

Dr. Rohling is also a professor with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and is the Director of ICICS, UBC’s Institute for Computing, Information and Cognitive Systems. His expertise spans topics of medical imaging, medical information systems, robotics, and ultrasound imaging in both 2D and 3D.  Together with ECE colleague Dr. Edmond Cretu, and their former Ph.D. student, newly graduated Dr. Carlos D. Gerardo, Rohling created an innovative new polymer capacitive micro-machined ultrasound transducer (polyCMUT), which is a major breakthrough in ultrasound technology. PolyCMUT technology will make ultrasound devices vastly cheaper, more portable, and more accessible, fundamentally transforming the way they can be used.

Congratulations November 2018 Graduates!

December 3, 2018

Congratulations to all our recent graduates from Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, who received their degrees on November 29th, 2018! A special congratulations also goes out to all of our award winners, who were recognized for their outstanding academic and/or design achievements at the MECH and NAME graduation reception.

Academic Achievement Awards

Degree with Distinction (Graduate)

Recognizes outstanding graduate students who have excelled academically throughout their degrees. Each of the following students achieved an overall average above 90%.

  • Sara Hosseinirad
  • Jian Sun
  • Mohammad Reza Talebi Bidhendi
  • Yudi Wang
  • Farzad Hemmati

The Naval Architecture & Marine Engineering Design Award

Recognizes outstanding accomplishments in Engineering Design.

Awarded to: “THOR: Twin-Hull for Optimized Research” project. Team members are:

  • Will Delaney
  • Trevor Elliott
  • Ben Holden
  • Raphael Thevenin

 

Reception Gallery

Dr. Huajian Gao Gives MECH Distinguished Colloquium Seminar

November 22, 2018

Influential solid mechanics and materials scholar Dr. Huajian Gao was the guest speaker in the Department of Mechanical Engineering’s Distinguished Colloquium Seminar Series on Monday, November 19th, where he gave a talk titled “Topological Toughening of graphene and other 2D materials.” A professor at Brown University, Dr. Gao is the editor in chief of the influential Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids and the pioneer of more than one research framework in solid mechanics and materials. Dr. Gao was invited to speak at UBC by Mechanical Engineering faculty members Mattia Bacca and Mauricio Ponga.

Biography

Huajian Gao received his B.S. degree from Xian Jiaotong University of China in 1982, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Engineering Science from Harvard University in 1984 and 1988, respectively. He served on the faculty of Stanford University between 1988 and 2002, where he was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 1994 and to Full Professor in 2000. He served as a Director at the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research between 2001 and 2006 before joining the Faculty of Brown University in 2006. At present, he is the Walter H. Annenberg Professor of Engineering at Brown.

Professor Gao’s research is focused on the understanding of basic principles that control mechanical properties and behaviors of materials in both engineering and biological systems. He has been elected to National Academy of Sciences (NAS), National Academy of Engineering (NAE), Germany National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). He is the Editor-in-Chief of Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids (JMPS), the flagship journal of his field. He is also the recipient of numerous academic honors, from a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in 1995 to recent honors including Rodney Hill Prize in Solid Mechanics from the International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics in 2012, Prager Medal from Society of Engineering Science, Nadai Medal from American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 2015 and Theodor von Karman Medal from American Society of Civil Engineers in 2017.

Distinguished Colloquium Series

Mechanical Engineering’s Distinguished Colloquium Seminar Series brings outside scholars present their work at UBC, providing students and faculty the opportunity to learn from world-class visiting academics, and opening the possibility for potential collaborations. The Department’s next Distinguished Colloquium Seminar will be in the spring, and feature Professor Albert Shih from the University of Michigan. Dr. Shih’s research involves topics in design and manufacturing, biomedical device design, biomedical manufacturing, medical innovation, surgical thermal management, machining of advanced engineering materials, micro manufacturing, precision engineering, and optical metrology.

To find out about future Distinguished Colloquium Seminars, join our seminar series mailing list.