Reaction All Years

Project Description:

The PLC project team working with Algonquin College has developed a portable Programable Logic Controller (PLC) unit that will allow students to work on their Programmable Controllers lab work at home without having to always go on campus. It was also designed to work with Modbus communication to allow the device to be used with SCADA systems.

The PLC unit is made up of an Arduino Mega with OpenPLC firmware uploaded to it, lights, switches, and buttons. This allows students to created a ladder diagram project that can be uploaded and simulated on the device.

The PLC unit can also be used with Modbus communication allowing the use of Simply Modbus or pyModbus (Python) to be used to control and read the status of all the inputs and outputs on the unit.

The PLC team has also developed two programs created using Python programming that allows the students to transfer their lab work done on OpenPLC to the Rockwell PLC’s in the Algonquin College lab rooms.

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Project Description:

This project has been part of an initiative to align the world of design with the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The purpose of the platform is to create a hub for all types of designers to learn about sustainable design and contribute their work to the global community. Our diverse team of students has worked hard to tackle this project in a short time from multiple angles. The UX team has worked on understanding the client’s goals, wireframing out the website through multiple iterations, and ultimately creating the final structure of the site. The design team has crafted the visual design of the website, which includes branding, colors, iconography, photography, and other visual elements that went on the site. The development team was responsible for setting up the WordPress environment and supporting both the UX and design teams in transforming the site design into a live website prototype. This project will become an important part of WDO and will evolve to become a go-to online space for sustainability resources and content within the design space.

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Project Description:

Bravo team applied Human-Centred Design to improve Temporary Resident Program Delivery (TRPD) by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). More specifically, we focused on the Temporary Resident Permit Application package for student extension of stay in Canada. According to IRCC, a high proportion of the applications are unsuccessful due to incomplete or improper filling of application forms. Thus, this project aimed to minimize and if possible eliminate identified problems responsible for the inaccurate or partial completion of the application forms.

To start with, a focus group discussion was conducted with IRCC officers to help discover insights to the causes of the high application failure rates. This was followed by heuristic analysis and cognitive walkthrough to identify the features in the application packages that are working well and are prone to errors based on a set of form design principles. Thirdly, we conducted interviews with seven users (past study permit extension applicants) and seven subject matter experts (internal and external) to understand the bottlenecks/challenges encountered in completing the application package from your perspective as the applicants. Likewise, the subject matter experts were able to share with the team valuable experience on how to avoid common mistakes and best practices in form design to ensure usability and accessibility by all.

Seven common themes as listed below were identified by analyzing our primary and secondary research.
Difficulty accessing adequate information
Heavy dependency on non-government channels and third parties for support
Information overload
Overwhelmed with the application process
Lack of error prevention and validation
Lack of effective communication
Based on these findings, we created five experience principles that address the needs of our target audience and informed our recommendations to IRCC. The key recommendations are summarized as follow:
Short term:
Use a larger font size and style for headers of each section of the forms and instruction guide.
The information Architecture of the form should be well structured to make an applicant easily navigate and complete the different sections.
Redesign the IRCC instruction guide webpage with better information architecture, and search function to improve information clarity, so that it only takes seconds to find answers (to the applicants’ questions) on the IRCC website.
Create a downloadable user manual containing step by steps with screenshots of how to complete each section of the forms.

Intermediate-term:
Online applications will have autosave functions. Only one section will be shown at a time to reduce cognitive load. Subsequent sections will be shown based on the response to previous sections.

Long term:
Study permit extension application forms are automatically generated from an applicant’s GC account to include information they have previously provided for their study permit application.

Addressing these identified problems with the forms and online instruction guide will yield the desired result of an improved applicant experience and minimize or eliminate common problems responsible for the inaccurate or partial completion of the application forms received by IRCC. The improved version of the forms and instruction guide will contribute to the more efficient processing of applications by IRCC staff.

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Project Description:

This automotive suspension which integrates A.I. is intended to highlight the shortcomings of traditional static and dynamic suspensions while offering an innovative, bleeding edge solution. The fundamental goal of this product is to vastly out-perform traditional suspension setups in road and track applications. The A.I. suspension system will integrate an array of sensors that relays driving condition information, including information about the road ahead, to a central computer on the car that uses artificial intelligence to process the information. It will use that data to make predictive changes to the suspension geometry of the car in order to achieve optimal performance while cornering.

Despite not having a client, our team remained results-oriented throughout the entirety of the development process. Using Scrum and Kanban development methodologies, we managed to stick to our timelines and realize our goals within the expected time period. This allowed us to communicate our progress effectively within the team and with our professors. Eventually, we would like to pitch our idea as a proof of concept to a large-scale automotive manufacturer within the performance sphere (such as McLaren, Ferrari, Mercedes, Toyota, or Mazda).

During the development cycle of the last 8 months, the team went from having a basic idea as to what artificial intelligence is, all the way to being fully immersed in the development of our own neural networks and the management of large datasets.

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Project Description:

Tetra Society of North America and Algonquin College’s Mechanical Engineering Technology program have partnered up in order to help make buildings more accessible for people with physical disabilities. The solution is a mechanically actuated ramp designed to overcome steps of up to 4 inches, while maintaining a low profile so as to avoid obstructing the regular flow of pedestrian traffic. The ramp is powered by two electric pistons which lift the ramp up and down, these pistons are controlled by an Arduino Uno.

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Project Description:

This App aims to establish a virtual connection between the Health Care Provider (HCP) and the customer, to establish the necessary help for the relatives or themselves within the safety of their own house.
If a client is feeling uneasy for their loved one’s wellbeing, hiring an HCP who can send an image of their relative in real-time to the client, allows for instant peace of mind. This same challenge exists for determining whether the patient is cooperative or assessing their overall demeanor from a distance, that could easily be explained via a photo or video directly to the client. Documented footage can help monitor an individual’s attitude (ie., loneliness, forgetfulness, alertness, etc.) and give important updates to the client as support. This mobile application will also give independence for patients who are self-sufficient and need extra help but are fully capable of communicating directly with their HCP (ie., scheduling appointments, meal preparation, personal trainers).
This report will be of importance to anyone from the client and even to the Health Care Provider. There would be a cost advantage and decreased risk to directly hiring a verified HCP through a hiring agency versus an ad in a classified’s section. There would also be a benefit to the person remaining in home during this stage of the pandemic – in isolation but still capable of maintaining a secure and safe lifestyle.

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Project Description:

This study’s research objective was to understand the many drivers, rationales, and factors of outbound student mobility and identify ways to better prepare and engage students for these mobility experiences.

Data was collected through interviews with Subject matter Experts (SMEs), professors and coordinators from Canada and Nigeria, as well as student participants from Algonquin College.

The research data reveal that most Algonquin college students are not aware of any study/work abroad programs at the college. However, the research suggests that all the students believe that there are numerous benefits from the program and unanimously believe that better marketing and promotion are needed. Staff, academic and administrative, expressed optimism at the idea of the outbound mobility program. An important key finding is that barriers to implementation at the college level have to do with limited resources and support, and adjusting courses to fit into a mobility schedule may be difficult. All SMEs from Nigeria have collaborations with foreign institutions, including the United States of America which is significant to acknowledge looking forward to future partnerships and opportunities. From the research, cost was identified as another huge barrier, and so the possibility to expand funding is crucial. The current Covid-19 pandemic and short duration of this project was identified as major limitations to the project.

The research focused on potential pathways for program development by evaluating our key findings, which translated into short, medium, and long-term recommendations. Essentially, this research project provides insights and discussions on best practices and serves as a pathway for these recommendations to leverage new sources of funding and resources to support study or work abroad opportunities.

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Project Description:

We were originally tasked with designing, developing and fabricating a simulated abdomen that can be used for CPR training. The abdomen would simulate realistic abdomen pressure feedback and breathing patterns.
The final product is a Simulated Abdomen apparatus designed for use in CPR training, that replicates the response of the human abdomen. It is designed to simulate a human adult abdominal response when CPR is being performed correctly on the device. With its small size it is easily portable, making it great for use in classroom settings for learning purposes. The simulated abdomen has realistic pressures and spring like responses that would be found in a human abdomen, so that when CPR is performed it feels like a real abdomen. When CPR is performed correctly, a green LED light will come on and the breathing mechanism will actuate and simulate breathing to show that CPR has been performed correctly. When CPR is performed incorrectly, a red LED light will come on and the CPR process must be restarted.

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Project Description:

The Cheetah Networks PulseView™ solution provides actionable, real-time, edge-to-cloud analytics for heterogenous loT network infrastructure. It delivers unprecedented visibility into the quality of experience of machines and users at the edge of the network. It allows users to have real-time visibility into the service or application experience, giving the user timely data to pre-empt and resolve network issues before they impact service. The PulseView™ solution also provides predictive analytics to forecast application needs and trends.

Our research for PulseView™ was split up between the front-end development for the user dashboard and outage maps design and functionality (Shuting), and the back-end development for network data collection, analysis, and aggregation (Ryan).

It is imperative for the PulseView™ solution to have a clean, stable, and highly functional UI that displays critical QoE and outage information to the customer. Shuting has aided Cheetah Networks immensely in meeting those critical needs during her time as a software engineer and research assistant.

What makes the PulseView solution unique from other network analytics software is its ability to provide real-time visibility and analytics of QoE from edge-to-cloud on a network. Ryan has been researching and developing the real-time data collection and aggregation components of the PulseDirector™ since September 2020 as a Cheetah Networks software engineer and research assistant.

During our time as software engineers and research assistants for Cheetah Networks, we learned many valuable lessons in engineering, design, initiative, and teamwork.
The development of large-scale and cutting-edge software is multi-faceted and being faced with the challenges that come with the rapid growth at Cheetah Networks is not an easy task. As students seeking to hone our craft, we had the opportunity to grow under pressure and under tremendous circumstances. We have learned and applied:
– Software design specification/review process
– Integration of new components with an existing and rapidly growing software
– Full-stack web development
– Networking protocols and standards
And much more through the guidance of our mentors and their trust in us to achieve and persevere through these challenging times.

Our progress with this research project has gone very well and we are looking forward to continuing our work on the future of network analytics with Cheetah Networks.

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Project Description:

AeroBarrier is a cutting-edge envelope sealing system that simultaneously measures and seals building envelope air leakage. This product meets passive house airtightness standards, achieves airtightness requirements in less time without costly delays, as well as eliminating noise and odour complaints by concurrently sealing exterior and interior walls. AeroBarrier is a single-component, high-performance, synthetic, permeable, aerosol-applied sealant that performs as an air barrier around ceilings, floors, walls, windows, doors, and electrical and plumbing fixtures. It is UV stable, seamless, monolithic, and can be applied over a wide range of temperatures. AeroBarrier microscopically seals joints and seams of the building envelope from any gap of ⅝” to nothing.

The research approach for this project is to analyze the performance of the AeroBarrier sealing technology by conducting a series of air depressurization tests with the use of a blower door. The process will be to investigate why air leakages occur during finishing construction and if the AeroBarrier is affected. The experimental testing was conducted at the Minto Communities Arcadia low-rise residential construction site, on a block of 8 slab-on-grade townhouses. The chosen method for AeroBarrier application at this site and many others is to spray the product post-drywall. It should be noted that AeroBarrier may be applied at any time between rough-in and prior to occupancy. Although, the ideal time to apply AeroBarrier is pre-drywall or post-drywall. This experiment will demonstrate how the 1.6 ACH50 (Air Changes per Hour at 50 Pascals of pressurization) for a townhouse may fluctuate during the finishing construction stages and ultimately evaluate the performance of AeroBarrier. The goal is to find out where, when, and why air leakages occur after the AeroBarrier sealant is applied.

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