The Voice - Summer 2021 - 55

OSPE HUB EXCHANGE
What happened at the
Ontario Engineering Competition - OEC 2021?
F
rom January 23rd-24th 2021, OSPE attended the
42nd annual Ontario Engineering Competition,
more commonly referred to as OEC 2021. Hosted
online by an Interschool team, the theme of this
year's event was " Opportunist. " Students from
each of Ontario's 16 accredited engineering schools participated
in eight competition categories that put their design skills,
communication abilities, and creativity to the test.
What Did the Three Winning Teams Discuss
at OEC 2021?
First Place - Autonomous Vehicles - Andrew Aslanidis,
McMaster University
" Autonomous vehicles are the hottest topic in the automotive
industry. Every automaker is either working on their own
self-driving systems or invested in a tech startup that is. Even
companies that have no background in building cars are working
on contributions to bringing autonomous vehicles to life. Contrary
to what many believe, the industry is not close to creating a car
that can drive itself. Out of the five levels of autonomy set out by
the Society of Automotive Engineers, the most advanced systems
that can be purchased on the market today fall under Level 2. A
lot of progress needs to be made before cars will come without
steering wheels and pedals, and with that progress will be a
whole slew of societal changes. Fully autonomous vehicles will
affect the world from environmental, economic, and social points
of view. Ethical dilemmas will need to be addressed and policy
needs to be created so that the roads can work in harmony. In the
end, the predicted benefits of autonomous vehicles outweigh the
consequences, but there is a lot of work to be done to get there. "
Second Place - Municipal Food Waste Disposal, Anerobic
Digestion and Biogas Upgrading - Sarah From and Priya
Shrestha, Western University
" In 2017 alone, Canadians threw out 2.2 million tonnes of food.
If not disposed of properly, food waste can have detrimental
effects, such as the formation of by-products that contaminate
groundwater and air from landfilling or incineration. As food
waste production increases, it becomes increasingly important
to apply separation and conversion systems to reduce toxic effects
and generate fuel as a bonus. Direct release of methane can be
prevented by processing food waste through an anaerobic digester
to produce biogas (~60% methane). This process also produces a
solid called digestate which is an additive for fertilizer. Since the
" waste " can be recovered and transformed into valuable products,
this process contributes to a circular economy. Politically, Canada
has anaerobic digestion policies and incentives that will help
drive greenhouse gas reduction using this technology. Recent
developments in anaerobic digestion technology make this
solution economically feasible. Pre-treatment of food waste with
enzymes followed by a solids digester and wet digester yields high
efficiencies. The biogas produced can also be further purified into
renewable natural gas (~99% methane) and put directly into the
gas grid. "
Third Place - The State of Quantum Computing in 2021Mithra
Perera, University of Ottawa
" As we continue to innovate and improve the transistor process,
we will be reaching a point where we cannot get any smaller
due to the quantum effect known as quantum tunneling. Thus,
quantum computing was born to combat tunneling using the
laws of quantum mechanics. Quantum computers use quantum
bits/qubits that behave using the phenomena of superposition
and entanglement. Superposition allows a qubit to be in a state
of either 0, 1 or both at the same time. Entanglement is the
phenomena where qubits are linked and inspecting one of the
entangled qubits can tell you about the other. What this means is
that quantum computers can use these effects to solve problems
that classical computers could never do. Climate change will
benefit by the increased molecule simulation and data analysis of
these computers. Traditional security methods will be improved
but current methods like 128-bit AES encryption will no longer
suffice as they will be cracked in seconds. Lastly, Canada has
been at the forefront of this development with billions of dollars
in investment and 4% of the global market share. The future of
quantum is here and it may be a lot closer than you think. "
OSPE would like to congratulate all the students who
participated in the 2021 Ontario Engineering Competition - OEC
2021. Congratulations also go out to the OEC 2021 volunteers and
organizing committee - who, hosted OEC online by an Interschool
team flawlessly!
June 2021 THE VOICE
55
The Voice - Summer 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Voice - Summer 2021
