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Engineering students using creativity to help kids and the elderly

Kelowna - First-year students compete in the design competition each year
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Students are competing in the annual Computer Aided Design/Computer Aided Manufacturing event for November. Projects that make it to the final round will be displayed Nov. 30 at UBCO. - Credit: Contributed

Engineering students are testing their creative skills to better the community.

The annual first-year design competition will have UBCO students designing projects to improve the quality of life for senior citizens and designing a game to improve attention spans in children.

“My number one goal is the students do something that will impact the community and that was the reason why I picked those themes,” said senior instructor Ray Teheri, with the school of engineering. “We live in Kelowna and there’s lots of elderly citizens. That’s the reason why I think it’s timely and appropriate to have a design that will impact their quality of life.”

Kids attention spans have been decreasing for the past 30 years, so he asked students to design a game to increase the kids’ spans, he said.

“I want to know what my students think about it. It’s very easy to evaluate. We can give it to a kid and see how he or she reacts.”

About 400 students will work in teams in the Computer Aided Design/Computer Aided Manufacturing competition. With the project, the students will get to experience what it’s like to work as engineers, said Teheri.

“Most of the students love it,” said Teheri.

The students will design their projects using 3D printers, hot wire cutters and more as a mandatory portion of the program. The teams will be judged by professors, grad students, last year’s winning team and industry leaders.

The final round of the competition will be held Nov. 30 in the EME building at UBCO and will feature about 200 students. Altogether, 400 students participate in the project.

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