The field of engineering is about a lot more than just building bridges.
Engineering technology students at John Abbott College proved just that as they showcased a wide range of skills this week at their second annual student expo.
The school’s Department of Engineering and Technology has been around for close to 25 years.
The three-year program prepares students for the workforce, with most continuing on to university.
“We want to help our students develop their creativity, critical thinking and trouble-shooting skills,” said John Abbott professor Dr. Liliya Nikolova.
In the first year of the program students build bridges.
“They're doing them with just popsicle sticks and after that we apply force over it and we have a competition,” Nikolova explained. “t's really fun for the students.”
Second-year students build projects using simple machines and some say they eventually want to work with machines that are much more complex.
“A race engineer is someone who sets up the vehicles or the machines that are preparing for a race in an aerodynamics aspect as well as fuel management and whatnot,” said second year student Etienne Tabib.
Third-year student projects were even more complex and complicated.
Ritchelle Grace Posadas built a ‘smart mirror’ so people can find out about the weather and other information while getting ready for work. She programmed the mirror to extract data from weather and Google Calendar databases.
Some of the students said they’ve found a future career they never dreamed of.
“I always thought I’d be more into sports, because I’m more of a sports type of guy, so maybe a gym teacher or something,” said first year student Ioannis Bakopanos. “I never thought I'd be an engineer.”
