Electrical engineers bring home gold at WEC

Last week, BCIT hosted the Western Engineering Competition (WEC). Throughout the three-day event, 250+ top engineering students from 14 universities competed for bragging rights and their place at the Canadian Engineering Competition (CEC). This year marked the first time a polytechnic has ever hosted the event as well as the first time BCIT has ever taken home the first prize in the prestigious Senior Design category.

During the Senior Design competition, teams of four were presented with an engineering challenge to solve in eight hours or less. True to BCIT, “Innovation in a complex world” was the underlying theme for the competition. In eight short hours, the teams had to create an innovative prototype of a bridge to aid with the flow of traffic over a busy canal in Venice, Italy.

“I would say my teams win had a lot to do with the hands-on education we have received at BCIT,” comments Senior Design team member Josh Lang. For three years now, Josh and teammates, Terry Calderbank, Jake Jarvis and Luke Pankratz, have been in the Electrical Engineering Program. The program consists of many time-sensitive lab assignments much like the challenges posed in WEC. “Our lab experiences really took the pressure out of the time limit in the Senior Design competition, allowing us to completely focus on the challenge.” Josh and his teammates were even able to complete their assignment with an hour to spare.

For Josh, “being able to network with upcoming top engineers in Canada and applying our education to something bigger than the classroom,” were the two most rewarding experiences from the competition.

Winning WEC is not the end for this team. This March, they will be competing again at the Canadian Engineering completion (CEC) in Toronto. Good luck team! And congratulations to all the competitors at this year’s WEC.

Congratulations to all the competitors!

Senior Design: 1. British Columbia Institute of Technology    2. University of Manitoba

Consulting: 1. University of Regina    2. University of Victoria

Programming: 1. University of Manitoba    2. University of British Columbia

Innovative Design: 1. University of Alberta    2. University of Saskatchewan

Communications: 1. University of Calgary    2. University of Regina

ReEngineering: 1. University of Manitoba   2. University of British Columbia

Debate: 1. University of Saskatchewan    2. University of Manitoba

Junior Design: 1. University of Victoria    2. University of Saskatchewan

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WEC is a student-organized event that wouldn’t be possible without the support of the sponsors and volunteers. A big thank you to everyone who helped run the event.

Organization Committee
Andrew Ydenberg (Chairman), Shahad Shaaya (Hospitality & Finance), Navtej Heir (Logistics), Cairo Howard (Sponsorship), Dean Tamboline (Competitions), Alex Tivy (Communications), Moshtagh Mohammadi (Social)

Competition Leads
Logan Wicks (Senior Design), Andrew Miltimore (Junior Design), Spencer Pollock (Programming), Stephanie Mulder (Debate), Evan Tsuji (Re-Engineering), Jonathon Murphy (Innovative Design), Sami Kafeety (Communications), David-Alexander Dabic (Consulting)

Sponsors
BCIT, FortisBC, City of Burnaby, Canada’s Energy Citizens, Trane, C-Fer Technologies, McElhanney, Pomerleau, BBA, BCIT Student Association, ASTTBC, Engineers & Geoscientists British Columbia, BCIT Technical Writing Certificate Program, RBC, Schlumberger