Queen’s Engineering Outreach team teaches digital skills

CLASS ON WHEELS: Kingston and the Islands MP Mark Gerretsen and local grade-school students try their hand at some engineering design and robotics experiments in the Queen’s Tech ‘n’ Tinker trailer, a mobile classroom operated by the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science. (University Communications)

The program has received new CanCode funding to support visits to local schools and First Nations communities

Local youth and schools will continue to benefit from digital literacy and computational thinking workshops supported with technology offered through Queen’s, thanks to a recent federal government funding announcement.

Actua, a Canadian charity focused on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education among youth, received the largest amount of funding under CanCode, an initiative of the Canadian Ministry of Innovation, Science, and Economic Development. As a member of the Actua network, Queen’s Engineering Outreach will receive $247,000 over 18 months.

On hand to celebrate the funding announcement on February 26 were representatives from Actua and Kingston and the Islands MP Mark Gerretsen.

“CanCode is our government’s down payment on Canada’s future,” says Mr. Gerretsen. “This program will help ensure more young Canadians of all backgrounds have the right skills for the jobs of the future. Coding and digital literacy will be the bedrock of future jobs and further study in high-demand STEM fields.”

The funds will be used to provide free workshops to grade-school students to help them build their digital skills, and expose them to technologies such as coding and robotics. The workshops are offered multiple times per week across the greater Kingston area, and the funding will support programming through to the summer of 2019.

“On behalf of Queen’s, we thank Actua and the federal government for this funding, which will benefit thousands of students in our area,” says Scott Compeau, Outreach Lead with the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science.

“This funding will allow us to continue to partner not only with local schools but also with First Nations communities to engage students in science, technology, engineering, and math-related learning activities,”adds Melanie Howard, Director of Queen’s Aboriginal Access to Engineering program.

For more information about Queen’s Engineering Outreach, visit queensconnections.ca.

Opening Fall 2018

Innovation and Wellness Centre: Cutting-edge teaching and research spaces bring Queen’s engineers together

Progress continues on the new Innovation an interdisciplinary mechatronics prototyping lab, and three reconfigurable and Wellness Centre (IWC), scheduled to laboratory where mechanical and electrical teaching studios. open in September. engineers will be able to work together, On the third floor, you will find the

The IWC will be home to expanded an undergraduate common room, a rapid IWC’s research labs. The Beaty Water engineering facilities, collaboration and experiential learning spaces, and stateof-the-art interdisciplinary research laboratories. It will also be the location for student health and wellness on campus, and the hub for innovation and entrepreneurship. The creation of the IWC was made possible through over $60 million in “ This leading-edge facility will uniquely bring together innovative undergraduate teaching facilities, worldleading research facilities, and innovation programming Research Centre will include four wet labs, bringing together water researchers from across the university. There will also be a multidisciplinary research initiative focused on the design and use of intelligent systems and machines to enhance human productivity, creativity, safety, and quality of life. Spanning a continuum of expertise from artificial intelligence, philanthropic support, with approximately in one space, connecting machine learning, and cyber-human 95 per cent donated by Queen’s professors, undergraduate, and systems, to robot control, smart sensors, Engineering alumni, parents, and friends. graduate students in a way that and mechatronic devices, this research In addition, the federal and Ontario governments contributed a combined total of nearly $22 million to this facility. The engineering facilities will be located on the second and third floors of the IWC. The second floor will feature group will facilitate the inherently complex interactions between humans, engineered machines and infrastructure, and their natural environments. Recruitment of new academics in these areas will align with the Principal’s faculty renewal plans. ” builds community and fosters new ideas. —Kevin Deluzio (Sc’88 MSc’90 PhD’98) Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science Everyone is invited to visit the new facility after it opens in the fall. In the meantime,

learn more about the Innovation and Wellness Centre at: engineering.queensu.ca/IWC

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