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BY ALAN MARTIN
University of Calgary
Student Contributor
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Engineering students do more than participate in activities
at their own universities. Several events each year bring
together engineering students from across Canada.
One of those is the Western Engineering Conference and Competition,
held this time from Jan. 21 to 25 at the University of Manitoba.
Teams for WECC came from nine Western Canadian universities
to participate.
This time, the University of Calgary Engineering Students’ Society
sent a record-breaking 52 people to the conference out of
about 150 in attendance. A $12,000 sponsorship drive, in fact,
was put on by the U of C to get funding for all the participants.
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Spirited Bunch
U of C engineering students
exhibit their enthusiasm during the Western Engineering
Conference and Competition.
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WECC is an event of the Western Engineering Students’ Societies
Team, which is a region of the national Canadian Federation
of Engineering Students. WESST’s purpose is “to
better our student societies through an informal association
of information and a sharing of ideas to learn about people
and schools involved in WESST,” according to its website.
The conference and competition are a good opportunity for
students who might normally have stayed at their university
to get out and meet people from all over Western Canada.
WESST also puts on the WESST Olympics, another annual event.
The same universities that send teams to WECC send teams
to the Olympics, although the Olympics are a purely social
event
designed for maximum fun and to get people out and doing
things with students from other universities.
WECC consists of both a competition part, with students
competing with each other in seven different categories
covering debate,
design and communications topics. U of C teams placed in
three of these categories – debate, explanatory communications
and corporate design. Our teams were also able to win the
spirit award this year.
Two representatives from the university, Jeremy Barretto
and Allison Hagerman, were sent to the Canadian Engineering
Conference
in Hamilton this year. The CEC, an annual event, brings
the best engineering students from across the country together
to attend seminars and tours, and compete in various categories,
much like WECC. WECC is essentially a qualifier for CEC.
U of C Hosts in 2005
Next year, the University
of Calgary will host CEC 2005 – one
reason why we sent so many participants to WECC this year.
“We wanted to raise awareness and excitement for CEC 2005,” said
Ryan Harrison, vice-president external for the U of C Engineering
Students’ Society. Hosting CEC is a great opportunity
for engineering students in Calgary.
“We are excited at the opportunity to show the rest of Canada
what a great city Calgary is,” he said.
EWB Event
March 4, was Engineers Without Borders Day at the University
of Calgary and everywhere else where EWB can be found. U
of C marked the day with a Bridging the Gap event, put on
by
the local EWB chapter.
Students were invited to make a donation to the Stephen
Lewis Foundation, an organization that provides assistance
and support
to HIV/AIDS victims in Africa. With each donation, students
were given a plank of wood with a statistic about HIV/AIDS
on it.
Students then hammered their planks onto a bridge frame
to help “bridge the gap.”
In addition, an EWB member in a large foam suit named World
Hunger was present. Students who donated could step into
the ring to fight World Hunger.
Overall $507 was raised for the Stephen Lewis Foundation,
and awareness was raised about HIV/AIDS, world hunger and
EWB.
Western Engineering
Students’ Societies Team
Visit
www.wesst.ca
Engineers Without Borders
Visit
www.calgary.ewb.ca
www.ewb.ca
Stephen Lewis Foundation
Visit
http://stephenlewisfoundation.org/
CEC
Canadian Engineering Conference
EWB
Engineers Without Borders
WECC
Western Engineering Conference and Competition
WESST
Western Engineering Students’
Societies Team
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