Finally, after a tedious 8 months away from UBC, I have returned to campus for my first half of third year. It has definitely been a weird change getting back to the student mentality. For the first time since first year, I have regularly scheduled classes again! It feels absolutely exhilarating not having to be in class from 8-5 everyday!

During the fall, I enrolled in the Distance-Ed course of CIVL 200: Engineering and Sustainable Development. The course was taught by Dr. Fiona Crofton and contained a wallop of information from life cycle analysis to interactive systems to economic approaches to sustainability. Entirely online, the course made a huge use of the UBC Vista interface. We weren’t just learning by ourselves, but engaged in many discussion board postings and chat rooms. The course delivered on a lot of familiar material through a new medium.

Now in the Spring term, I’ve got five classes:

• MECH 305 –  Data Analysis and Mechanical Engineering Laboratories
• MECH 360 – Mechanics of Materials
• MECH 375 – Heat Transfer I
• MECH 380 – Fluid Dynamics
• EECE 365 – Applied Electronics and Electromechanics

Now with my Thermofluids option, the only course that’s different from General Mech is the EECE course, which 365 focuses more on electromagnetism concepts. In my opinion, this is more useful knowledge for someone who will be working with a lot of pumps and motors in process facilities, mines and more.

MECH 305 is a 6 credit course, which means a LOT of labs. The lab topics seem to have a lot of variety so I hope they’ll be fun and interesting. In lectures, we learn about statistical analysis. A senior mentor from the Trimentoring program once told me that Stats was probably the most useful class he took in university.

MECH 360 so far has focused on classic physics problems ie. “Will this rod break under this load?” Dr. Mohamed Gadala has been very interactive with the class and takes his time to explain the important concepts (and will stare you down until you understand it completely!).

MECH 375 has the best timeslot on my schedule. 8-9 am MWF and usually with the next class 4 hours later. Every morning we are introduced to heat transfer concepts such as conduction, convection, and radiation. Luckily Dr Atabaki has been producing some fantastic notes along his lectures.

MECH 380, I won’t deny, is my least favorite course at the moment. Fluids is a very complex subject to teach, so it’s important that the concepts be explained very clearly and concise. This is one I’ll definitely have to hit the textbooks a lot for.

EECE 365 has started off very well. Mr Nathan Ozog (from BC HYDRO!) is teaching for the first time and has provided some very thorough lectures so far. The neat thing about electromagnetism is that the concepts are essentially the same as electrical circuits. How much flux is running through that ferrous core? We’ll find out more soon enough.

Being back at school feels great. It’s nice to see young people again and the campus is as lively as ever. Hopefully the Olympics will be fantastic as I get to volunteer at the Thunderbird Arena (Women’s hockey!) as the transport guy. More on that during February. On top of all this, it’s time to start firing off those Co-op resumes for the summer work term again! Better get at it.

Yesterday, the National Research Council of Canada’s Institute for Fuel Cell Innovation (NRC-IFCI) held a tour of their facilities for any UBC Mech students. The facility is located just south of the campus near TRIUMPH and is Canada’s leading research facility for hydrogen and fuel cells. It’s also LEED’s Gold certified! You can check out that info here.

We had numerous researchers introduce us to the basics of fuel cells and what NRC-IFCI did. After an hour of slides, we finally got to the good stuff. First up was a drive around the block with both the Ford Focus sedan and GM’s demonstration SUV. The first thing you notice in the car is the difference in sounds you’re used to hearing. Instead of the roaring engine, you get a few air compression sounds and a whole lot of gentle humming. The demonstrators described a lot of the car’s processes (plus the on-board screen that shows the car’s status). One amusing tidbit was the fact that the rear seats have either a permanent arm-rest bulging out or permanent cup-holders to limit the total passenger capacity (due to weight restrictions).

After that we had a tour of the facilities. To be honest, there wasn’t much to see aside from a whole bunch of advanced looking research labs and expensive equipment. Much of the building’s assets that gave them LEED certification came from their solar panels, geothermal energy usage, and alternative fuel stations for transport. There was also a neat containment area where the cars are placed to make environmental and vibrational tests.

Many people always debate about hydrogen fuel cells vs electric battery cars. As one of the researchers put nicely: it’s not a competition; the two technologies should complement each other. Both have different benefits and, in my opinion, should be developed in parallel. The sooner we rid our reliance on fossil fuels and turn towards a more sustainable solution, the better. And note to all: they’re hiring co-op students!

Co-op Update!

DFO Small Craft Harbours is giving me plenty of work to do. Multi-tasking and management is key in this workplace because I’ve got a whole pile of projects on my desk that can easily be fumbled up. From minor electrical projects to massive construction, I’m getting it all.

One skill I’m happily developing is AutoCAD. After working with our (beloved) NX5 from the PACE lab and SolidWorks at home, I must say that AutoCAD is damned archaic. We use AutoCAD LT at work so it’s basically all you get with regular AutoCAD minus, well, one dimension. Seeing as we’re not going to be modeling 3D floats very often, 2D is all we need. However, the fact that I have to draw everything manually gets quite tedius. I’m too used to the other programs automatically generating correct dimensions and doing my centerlines.

Site visits are also quite neat. I got to see some PILE DRIVING action down at Ladner. You know those vertical timber piles that anchor floats in place? Well they go reaally deep into the mud so we contract crews to do some hammer-driving on them. Engineers need to consider the depth they go down to see how much bearing they can supply the float. In high wind/wave locations, a pile can rip right out.

It’s been a while since my last update so I’ll try to bring you guys up to speed!

I’m now working at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans – Small Craft Harbours. What we basically do is manage the many harbours in BC with construction, upgrades, and repairs. There’s a surprisingly large amount of engineering involved with just some floating pieces of wood for small boats to dock on!

Everything like the mooring piles, float timber, anchoring, and gangways require inspections too determine their remaining life. Most of these harbours are managed by a “Harbour Authority” which consists of a number of local volunteers in the area.

So what I get to do is basically help out the other senior engineers with projects at various harbours. This may include making drawings on AutoCAD, writing tenders to get vendor quotations, communicating with Harbour Authority, and making site inspections. The work gets pretty intense but I’m learning a lot everyday.

Until next time, goodbye and good luck!

Welcome to the Thinking Mech, a roblog for everyone to catch a a dose of life in UBC Mechanical Engineering. My name is Vince and we’ll skip right past the introductions as I’m sure you’ve seen this.

We’re hitting mid-August now and school’s just around the corner again. Oh wait, I’m in the Co-op program? Four more months at work? Horray! Enjoying my eight month haitus from school, I’ve been working at BC Hydro Power Smart Industrial Marketing since May. Co-op is a win-win decision as you get to make money (tuition fees?) while gaining valuable skills and work experience.  As my work term nears its end, I will be moving on to the Department of Oceans and Fisheries – Small Craft Harbours where I will be assisting engineers with habour structures and more.

Finally, when I finally return to UBC in January 2010, I’ll be entering third-year in the Thermofluids option. Why? I like learning about physical processes and have always been interested in fluid behaviour since high school chemistry.

So that’s my workademic outline for the next eight months, then we’ll see where co-op takes me again. These last few months have been great. I’m getting exercise, seeing friends, and even reading a fiction novel here and there. It’s all about the work-life balance, right?

Anyways, until next time, good-bye and good luck!