Canada speaks mechatronics

Entrepreneurship, innovation, mechatronic education programs and mechatronic systems are all well represented at the Discovery 11 conference in Toronto, Ontario this week. The University of Waterloo's Mechatronics Engineering Applied Science program is certainly having an impact on innovation in Canada. In a brief walk through the exhibit floor, I was immediately attracted to the mechatronic solutions of two startup companies: Hockey Robotics, "Leader in Hockey Stick Testing" and Clearpath Robotics, "your unmanned experts".

I am attending this conference as an invited speaker to share experiences on the topic of translating training and talent development into manufacturing careers. I took the opportunity of an early arrival to stroll through parts of the exhibit floor and stopped in front of the hockey stick testing robot to be greeted by a young man who turned out to be a student in Waterloo's mechatronics department. He explained to me how mechanics, electrics, controls and computers were tightly integrated in the system that was designed to simulate a hockey player's slap shot and measure the resulting stresses on the stick. I suppose it takes Canadians to fully appreciate how important a well engineered hockey stick really is.

From my guide, Chirs, I learned that Waterloo has had a Bachelor of Applied Science in Mechatronics Engineering degree for 5 years or more and has graduated about 70 students. This is a coop program accredited by the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board. We discussed how servo technology was employed in the hockey stick tester, how the coop program helps students to narrow their focus in studying mechatronics, and what great job prospects there are for graduating seniors.

In the next aisle, I came across a robotic autonomous catamaran, designed for water sampling, that was also a product of the Waterloo mechatronics program. This immediately struck me as an interesting product because of my sailing hobby, because of my college NSF Student Originated Studies project to sample lake waters in upstate New York, and because I just read about a Virginia company that is working on an autonomous sailing catamaran. As the discussions at this booth continued, I learned that the demand for mechatronics engineering skills in Canada is outstripping the supply, so companies are sending practicing engineers back to school to get "multi-skilled".

A couple of others things have struck me about this conference. Unlike conferences that I typically attend, the attendees at this one are young. Not so much grey hair is in evidence. They are also diverse, both by ethnicity and gender. And there is a real sense of innovation pervading the show.

For those of us who need engineers trained in mechatronics or for those of us who need to develop university programs to teach mechatronics, perhaps we should look to what Canada has accomplished. They do speak mechatronics here.

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Comments Nice article Keith. The UW Mechatronics Engineering program is indeed quite unique, the first class having graduated in 2008 (the graduating class size is typically 95 students). You may also be interested in attending the final year design symposium next year (held in March - likely the 19th) at which the students present and exhibit their projects - the hockey stick testing machine was one of these this year. Posted by: Jan Huissoon on May 23, 2011 I am from Canada eh! Plus a graduate of the University of Waterloo in Mechanical Engineering. Waterloo was always innovative in making more rounded engineers than normal and their mechatronic's program is just a logical extension of integrating more diciplines into a program that carriers the mechatronic's banner. Posted by: Paul Zepf on May 31, 2011 Very insightful keith, and i believe canada is leading the way in this field. I have friends that have applied to waterloo for next semester, good luck to them. Great read, thanks. Posted by: Chris on June 10, 2011 You may also be interested in attending the final year design symposium next year (held in March - likely the 19th) at which the students present and exhibit their projects - the hockey stick testing machine was one of these this year. Tulsa Bankruptcy Posted by: Noman on June 20, 2011 Keep up the good work, Keith. I love read your articles! I hope to see more. Posted by: Samantha L. on August 28, 2011 Post a comment (If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.) Name: Email Address: URL: Remember personal info? Comments: (you may use HTML tags for style) Type the word 'packaging' (required):