Rookie team shows well at 2007 Engineering Games
The technology in James Bond movies represents the (usually fictional) cutting edge of engineering application. Every young engineer dreams of being Q. Last week, 29 undergraduates from Concordia got to test their skills as master problem solvers at the 2007 Quebec Engineering Games. This year’s theme was Engineering Never Dies.
Hosted by the Université de Sherbrooke, the 17th edition of the games brought together engineering students from around the province for friendly competition in sport, academic and cultural events.
The highlight of the games, and the event for which everyone wants bragging rights, is the machine competition. This year it was Bond vs. Evil Dr. Spring. Teams had to build a self-propelled machine to infiltrate Dr. Spring’s lair and obtain a seven digit code for stopping a bomb that would melt the Arctic ice sheet and drown Anticosti Island. Like all good Bond vehicles it had to be able to negotiate air, water and land, as well as function in complete darkness.
Concordia’s delegation was led by Karine Huberdeau (Building, Civil and Environmental Engineering), president of the engineering games executive committee. While she has competed for the last three years, she said most of the team were new to the event this year.
“With so many rookies and a brand new executive team, we were facing a big challenge. The games were won by the hosts at Sherbrooke, followed by École Polytechnique and McGill. Overall we came in fifth.”
While final results from individual competitions are still being tabulated, Huberdeau underlined that for a new team, Concordia did surprising well. “In academic competition we placed in the top three in Civil, Mechanical, Software and Consulting categories. We were very strong in the trivia competition, only losing in the finals to Polytechnique.”
She said the team really pulled together to garner first place in La nuit de l’exploit, “a sort of ‘Amazing Race’ activity that went on for three nights!”
As for the machine competition, “We didn’t place in the top three, but we had a great time as all the big sponsors [Banque Nationale, Hydro-Québec, Bell, Meloche Monnex, CAE] came out to watch the result of hundreds of hours that each school had put into building a machine that could complete a very challenging course.”
As a group, participants at the Quebec Engineering games are committed to making contributions to local charities. This year each participant was asked to bring four nonperishable food products for Moisson Estrie, a local food bank . Students also volunteered with a Sherbrooke non-profit group during the games.