OSPE - The Voice - Fall 2019 - 35

STUDENTS

Making the future at uOttawa's
New STEM Complex:

Taking a Transformative Approach to Engineering Education
Written by Eliane Cayen, Communications and Marketing Assistant at the University of Ottawa, Engineering Faculty

E

ngineering students at the University of Ottawa can make
an impact on real-world problems right from their arrival
on campus. The new STEM Complex, which opened its doors
last September, aims to transform the way engineering students,
as well as students from all faculties, work and learn on campus.
"Since I joined uOttawa just over two years ago, I've been
consistently thinking well beyond the STEM vision," says
Jacques Beauvais, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering of
uOttawa. "Creativity is an essential part of the vision where
we must focus on three sets of skills for our students in order to
better prepare them for the major changes presently occurring
in industry today: data literacy, technology literacy and human/
cultural literacy." The building, now the largest on campus,
unites modernized and improved engineering research and
teaching labs. Beyond its 21st century facilities and state-ofthe-art laboratories, the STEM Complex is a place that brings
together innovation, collaborations and unlimited possibilities.
STATE-OF-THE-ART FACILITIES

The first floor of the building, which Jacques Beauvais calls the
"entrepreneurial and engineering design base camp", exclusively
contains facilities for prototyping and manufacturing, as
well as collaborative spaces. Amongst them are the Richard
L'Abbé Makerspace, equipped with a variety of 3D printers
and scanners, laser cutters and virtual reality devices, and
the Brunsfield Centre, a machine shop with traditional

manufacturing equipment such as mills and lathes, bandsaws
and drill presses. Training courses and workshops are offered
to learn to use the technologies available in all these facilities.
What is novel about the spaces is that they are open to
students of all faculties, and even to the community, including
youth in the community through outreach activities, outside
of classroom hours. This gives students the opportunity to
work on projects that really interest them by allowing them
to design, build, and test prototypes. These new facilities,
combined with the other initiatives put in place by the Centre
for Entrepreneurship and Engineering Design (CEED), provide
students with all they need to launch their own start-up and to
turn their ideas into reality.
INTERDISCIPLINARY COLLABORATIONS

The openness of the STEM Complex is meant to bring in
students of various backgrounds. A big part of the vision is
centered around inclusivity and innovation, which involves
breaking boundaries between academic fields through
interdisciplinary collaborations and multi-faculty projects.
This vision is already reflected through interactive works
of art installed in the building; two giant art pieces, Surface
Tension and Equilibrium, were designed and built by a team
of engineering and visual arts students as a part of the STEAM
project, an interdisciplinary project that adds an art component
to the STEM disciplines.
Fall 2019

THE VOICE

35
OSPE - The Voice - Fall 2019

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