In designing its entry for the SAE Aero Design competition, a team of Windsor Engineering students concluded that optimal efficiency is not the goal.

The eight students, all mechanical engineering students pursuing the aerospace option, have created a model plane to pit against more than 70 rivals from universities as far afield as Poland, India and Egypt, in the competition, April 22 to 24 in Van Nuys, California. Each team has design a radio-controlled aircraft that must lift the largest payload and will be judged on its flight ability, an oral presentation, and a written report.

“It doesn’t matter how fast you go,” says Lancer Aerosports team captain Ankur Joshi. “It’s if you can lift the payload.”

The group’s project literally got off the ground Thursday, as it easily became airborne in its maiden test flight. The vehicle’s weight is about 6.3 kilograms; team members have calculated its potential payload at over nine kilograms.

The team made several alterations to previous Windsor designs, including a switch to an aluminum rather than wooden fuselage, and a shorter main wing that maintains its lift capacity by increasing the width to keep the same surface area.

The greatest challenge was in transferring designs from paper to reality, Joshi says: “None of us had manufacturing experience coming into the project.”

The competition is the capstone design project for the students, who all hope for careers in the aerospace industry after they graduate. First, though, they have clear the runway in California.

“We’re representing the University of Windsor on what is really a world stage,” says Joshi. “We really have an incentive to do well.”

Chemical waste from campus laboratories often finds new life in surprising ways—some of it right under our feet, according to Sherri Menard, manager of environmental health and safety.

Ongoing recycling efforts in the Chemical Control Centre include creative ways to re-use materials that had previously been discarded, as well as earth-friendly ways to dispose of those that cannot be recycled.

One of the more interesting ways discarded chemicals are re-used includes the use of halogenated waste, or solvents, which are recycled and used in cement mixing. This gives the material new life and prevents its disposal in landfills and incinerators.

Menard says environmental friendliness is the watchword in the CCC and chemical disposal vendors are chosen based on their processes and procedures. For example, the University avoids disposal vendors who use deep well injection methods which dispose of chemical waste in underground wells and is considered environmentally risky.

“All the vendors we use, for whatever chemical, are chosen specifically to insure most of the product, or as much as possible, can go to recycling or is being reused,” she says. “We try to avoid landfills as much as we can.”

The CCC team has a computer program that tracks available chemicals on campus and allows labs to order small amounts of just what they need, rather than large amounts that can be costly and wasteful. Often, these chemicals are sourced from other labs looking to dispose of excess.

“If you have chemicals in your lab that you don’t need anymore, you can bring them here and we’ll put them back in the system so they can be reused by another lab,” says hazardous materials technician Tina Lepine. “Because research methods change and people change their protocols, there are often excess chemicals somewhere that another lab could use.”

Lepine educates users about responsible use and disposal of chemicals and encourages them to implement such simple changes as mixing smaller amounts and changing processes to decrease cost, waste and impact to the environment.

CCC team leader Francis Arnaldo has worked at other institutions in the past and says the fact that UWindsor manages all of its chemical processes in one place enhances its ability to encourage earth-friendly protocols.

“We have the ability to promote processes and educate end users because we handle so many aspects of this—like ordering less material—so management is more streamlined,” Arnaldo says. “People don’t realize the impact they have down the line. When you reduce, reuse, and recycle, it starts with you.”

Editor's note: This is the first in a series of articles celebrating the University's environmental stewardship, leading up to Earth Day, April 22.

John Irving returns to the themes that established him as one of North America’s most admired storytellers in Avenue of Mysteries.

The Campus Bookstore has selected this absorbing novel of fate and memory as its book of the week, reducing its price from $35 to $30.84 through April 24.

Protagonist Juan Diego will take a trip to the Philippines, but what travels with him are his dreams and memories; he is most alive in his childhood and early adolescence in Mexico.

“An aura of fate had marked him,” Irving writes. “The chain of events, the links in our lives—what leads us where we’re going, the courses we follow to our ends, what we don’t see coming, and what we do—all this can be mysterious, or simply unseen, or even obvious.”

Pick up a copy in the store, located on the lower level of the CAW Student Centre.

The benefits of walking cannot be overstated, says the April edition of Workplace Wellness E-Digest.

Published by the Department of Human Resources’ Office of Employee Engagement and Development, the newsletter answers questions about walking for pleasure and improved health, and features information on its campaigns to promote regular physical activity at work.

In observance of Cancer Awareness Month, it also offers material on preventing and detecting the disease. Read the Workplace Wellness E-Digest.

Food services outlets will alter their hours of operation this week, the second of final examinations.

Crocodile Grill, Vanier Hall

• April 18-20, breakfast from 7:30 a.m. to noon and dinner from 7 to 11 p.m.
• April 21, breakfast from 7:30 a.m. to noon and dinner from 5 to 11 p.m.
• April 22, breakfast from 7:30 a.m. to noon

Bru, Alumni Hall

• April 18-21, 5 to 11 p.m.

Marketplace, CAW Student Centre

• April 18-20, 7:30 a.m. to 11 p.m.
• April 21, 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.
• April 22, 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Tim Hortons kiosk, CAW Student Centre

• April 18-20, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• April 16 and 17, closed

Brown Gold Café, Leddy Library

• April 18-19, 10 a.m. to 11 p.m.
• April 20, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Dividends, Odette Building

• April 18-20, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Tim Hortons, Centre for Engineering Innovation

• April 18-21, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
• April 22, 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

The outlet in the Toldo Health Education Centre has closed for the semester. Find the up-to-date schedule on the Food Services website.