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,
Friday, March 14,1997 The Magazine of the Ulliversity of Waterloo Ellgi1leering Society Volume 10 Issue 4
Explorations
New Sights
New Sounds
Young Minds
Alex Matan
Explorations Director (1 of 2)
1 B Elec - Spike Suppression
a
y being in 1 B (the pretty smart
umb frosh), I never realized
how big Explorations was when
I signed on as one of the d irectors. The
fact that the event ran as smoothly as it
did was the result of many hours of
work put in by everyone involved.
The day started for me at 7:30 a.m. with
the alarm going off. I fell on the floor try-
ing to get up, which brought cheer and
delight to my morning.
I arrived at EL around 9 a.m., finding
students volunteered by their high school
who could not find EL, although they
were right in front of it. Their directions to
EL included e phrase "red submarine"
which led me to ponder deeply on the
Lorentz force equation, as I didn't really
know what that meant either. The first
tour gave us a chance to work out a few
bugs, such as dealing with late-<:omers and
displays that suddenly weren't displaying.
Displays were set up by every depart-
ment; such as demonstrations of quick-
sand, water treatment, walking robots, and
virtual reality. There were also displays set
up by the three student project race cars
and the triumphant concrete toboggan
teams. The kids really enjoyed the chance
to get close to and play with some of the
advanced technologies which they could
only see from afar on the television. One
gentleman who had brought his kids for
three years in a row said he was still
impressed with the demonstrations.
The day included a room full of comput-
er-controlled Lego robots, courtesy of
Engineering Science Quest (ESQ), which
was enjoyed by children in both grade
school and university.
Enginuity drew an awesome turnout
with kids and parents working tog thcr to
engineer the best design. Events induded
bridge construction, shipbuilding, and
deep-sea extraction.
The purpose of Explorations is to give
kids a chance to see the neat stuff they can
do if they pursue careers in engineering. I
realized that this was being achieved when
I was going through E3 and S<lW a SWt'\.'(
little girl with the biggest smil ' on l1l'r fact'
after seeing the artificial hip implant <md
Fonnula SAE display .
I shall now pay homage to all involvc'CI
in generating this needed excitement.
Thanks to my fellow Explorations dirc<.ior,
Lynn Zupancic, for doing more lhan her
fair share of the work, to VP-I Kim
Whitear, for babysitting the two of
along the way, to Brenda and Sue in the
Dean's office, for doing the tedious tasks
that would have scared off the rest of LIS, to
Carl Thompson, for arranging to get us all
of those cool displays, and to the rest of the
volunteers, without whom there wouJd be
a lot of disoriented people ending up in the
V2 caf convinced that they had found the
"Making Plastics" demonstration. You all
deserve a pat on the back and $47,(XX),COO,
payable in monthly installments for all
eternity.
The "I'm almost sorry I missed the deadline" Issue


(0 tIS contentS.
/'oreCf1sfi ng Ou r /'u I II res .. . .. .3
"V(wnka Nnka /'c'tJII" .. . ... .4-5
Blls Push . .......... . ....... 5
Camplls Dlly '97 ............. 6
ClIttillg Edg Tcc!lIIology ..... .7
COl/crete To/.Joggan ......... 8 9
ScicHc, & TCc/lIl%gl/ ..... J 0-11
I.KS . .................. 12-"/3
Freedom From l1zjormntiol1 .. .14
Cloud 9 .................. . l4
Occidental Tourist .......... 15
JW Arts . ............... 16-17
Sports Update . ............. 18
Shadow Days .............. 18
EngSoc News ............. .19
To Be A Kid Again
Chris Foster
Editor-in-Chief
2A Mech
TI
past weekend, I spent my Saturday help-
ing out with explorations. In particular I,
along with the help of Jason Kimball, Cara
Gray and Ed Hetcher, ran Enginuity.
The day began with a tower building contest, using
straws and plasticine. In fact, for Jay, Cara and I, after
the initial setup, the day really did begin this way. We
spent the first hour, while the first tour was running,
building a tower over 3 1/2 feet tall - we had a blast!
But how is it that three people who can barley get up for
an eight-thirty class can get up that early to play with
straws and plasticine? Unfortunately, due to the early
start of this event, there was no one to compete with so
we won by default. Prizes were given to all who partici-
pated.
The second event was a little more succes ful all
around. The event had one building material (a blotter),
and one rule (it must fit in the bucket). The object was to
build a boat that could float the most marbles. I have to
admit I underestimated the kids. My inital thought that
310 marbles would be more than anyone could float
was way off. In fact one kid managed to float 310 mar-
bles, 3 cans of coke, and 2 large 3M rolls of duct-tape. I
have yet to talk to an engineer who thought they could
do that. It was this event that brought out the kid in Ed.
Honourable mention goes to Kim Whitear, for her
entry in the bridge-building contest - the third event
(building materials include: plasticine, straws, and pop-
sicle sticks). Although she didn't even come close to
beating the other entries, she showed her true kid-ness
by sticking by her design, and seeing it through to the
end.
So what is it that makes being a kid so much fun?
Why can they build a boat that can float more marbles
than any fourth-year's boat? Why do I want to be a kid
again?
Being a kid means not having any worries, always
having someone there to look after you when you mess
up and never having to do your own laundry.
But being a kid means a lot more, it's limitless creativi-
ty guided by an unbound imagination. To be a kid is
also to lack the fear of failure. Unfortunately every kid
grows up, and almost every kid is told what they can
and cannot do. As a result, their imagination is not
given the opportunity to flourish; by the time a kid
reaches university and beyond, the time when their
imagination and creativity can be used to solve world
problems, it's gone.
The kid who folded the blotter boat that couldn't be
sunk didn't put a lot of thought into his boat, he simply
folded the way he thought made sense. His creative
edge had not been influenced by "proper" design tech-
niques, he only knew to fold.
To be a kid again would be great,. I think the world
needs more kids, or at least more people prepared to
think, and when necessary, act like a kid. Personally, I
would like to go back to about age three. At that age,
you can still suck your thumb without people looking at
you weird, and your blanky is still your best friend. But
the thing I think I miss most about being a kid is you can
sleep when you're tired, rather than when you're done
everything else.
Editor-In-Chief
Chris Foster
AssiStant Editor

Iron Warrior Staff
Michael Ang
Allison Annan


AudteyDWU
Alison Kudelb
Richard Kuttner
Amy Kim
Aaron Leiba
Luhowy
COAtributors
OmarBar$e
Nicola Basey
Kyle Corbett
Lisa Kropf
Michael Olley
Keith Parker
James Wallace
Kim Wbitear
Jason Worry
Apologies To To Those Forgotten
MikeAng
Nicole Hensen
Paul Meyer - Ringed in '88
RON RRIOR
Forecasting our future
James Wallace
18 Civil
E
very newspaper has a section devoted to the
horoscope. For 90 cents a minute we can call the
Psychic Friends Network. The world is full of
palm readers, psychics, and fortune tellers. Charlatans
the lot of them! I fail to comprehend how a wrinkle on
my palm can affect my love life. How do the stars pre-
dict my financial situation? Can a crystal ball reveal to
a stranger what I will be doing next year? Are tea
leaves any better?
If you believe in this garbage then please do not be
offended when I call you a fool. A crystal ball is nothing
more than a crystal ball- a large spherical body of glass. It
possesses no ability to predict the future. How can it? The
glass knows nothing about who you are. Tea leaves don't
know what you have gone through, how much money
you have, or where your heart lies. That people will live
their lives based on a generic paragraph in the back of a
magazine written for them and a million other readers by
someone they have never met before and never will meet
goes beyond me. Why would someone pay good money
to spectk to a 'psychic' over the phone when they can do
the same thing at home?
Any semi-intelligent person should be able to predict
their own futures after some reflection, although I don't
care for the use of the word 'prediction'. Forecast would
be a better word. Any person can forecast their future just
as a meteorologist can forecast the weather. He doesn't
know for sure what will happen tomorrow, but given
today's weather conditions, he has a good idea of what is
likely to happen. No one can predict what will happen to
them tomorrow, or next week, or on January 21 of the year
2002. However, given the current conditions, one can
guess at what is likely to happen in the near or distant
future.
You see, I believe in the existence of God, and that
everything happens for a reason; that everything is part of
a greater scheme of things. Everything happens with pur-
pose. Perhaps you do not share in my view , but you
must surely believe in some guiding force, call it fate, or
destiny, or even luck. I will call it God's will. Whatever
you call it, believe that every living moment of your life is
spent in preparation of the nex1:. I pent twenty years of
my life preparing for this moment right now, the writing
of this essay. My twenty years plus the moment of ."riling
this essay will be in preparation of whatever I do after J
finish writing this. So to forecast your individual future,
think back over your life and ask yourself, "For what have
my experiences prepared me?"
The best experiences to reflect on are the ones that hap-
pened seemingly just for you. Think of Ul.ings that you
wanted to happen. What about bizarre coincidences in
your favour? Think of things U1at happened to you with-
out your control. Things that sucked you in and forced
you to learn and adapt. These are the experiences that
happened because they had to happen in order for you to
be prepared for now. They could be good or bad experi-
ences, as long as you are better because of them.
An example I use from my own life is the Frend1
Immersion program. The program was for any student
enteling the seventh grade and commenced just as I was
ready to enter the seventh grade. It was as if French
Immersion started just for me. The timing could not have
been better; I wasn't interested in learning French, my par-
ents didn't care if I was in this program. I just felt com-
pelled to submit an application So some guiding force felt
that for me to reach some future point, I would have to
enter this program. What have I gained from it? Quite
obviously, a grasp of the French language. So it makes
sense to say that somewhere in my future the knowledge
of the French language will be important. Perhaps a gov-
ernment job, or perhaps a marriage with a French girl. Or
frequent trips into Quebec.
If we look closer at what the French Immersion pro-
gram has brought me, we will see things beyond learning
a new language. Because of French Immersion, J went to
Chatham Kent Secondary School instead of Blenheim Dis-
trict High Sch 1. Because of an impulse in the sixth grade,
I was influenced by a completely different set of high
school teachers than I would ordinarily have been. By
being at CKSS, I gained a love of computers and of math. I
also gained a respect of knowledge and of a certain Uni-
versity in the KW area. I am now an engineering student
at the University of Waterloo. Had I gone to Blenheim
High School, I might I1ave settled for a lesser program at
another school. Being where] am now, it is safe to forecast
my future a being a Civil Engineer somewher . Then
again, a low pressure system entering the area does not
always mean rain, even when the rain is in the forecast. So
who is to say for what the University of Waterloo is
preparing me. I am doing math intensiv technical work,
so I will forecast a future with that skill involved. I will still
forecast a future involving the French language. I also pre-
dict a future involving computers.
I know that Waterloo, Chatham Kent Secondary, and all
the people I have met therein are of great significance to
my future because I never would have chosen this future
on my own. Had the French Immersion programme been
initiated one year later - which it very nearly was - then
who knows what J would be doing now. So this series of
events 11appened because a guiding force wanted them to
happen. to me. God knew that I needed to take this path to
prepare for whatever he has in store for me.
So the next time you wonder about what the future has
in store for you, screw the psychics and the horoscope.
Look at what you are doing now, and what you have
done. Think about what your life so far has prepared you
to do. Remember unexpected things. Especially unexpect-
ed twists that lead to a major impact on your life. Ask
yourself, "What has fate prepared me to do?" Once you
know what you are ready to do, expect to have to give a
lot more. And wl1atever God directs your life to, remem-
ber to enjoy it.
:Jrlj our newejt grown up tajte!
Its the newest addition to M(Oonald's(l) grown up menu - Crispy Chicken Delu)(e
TW

Savour the crispy coated all white seasoned (hicken breast - topped with fresh
lettuce ledves, a slice of ripe tomato and a cffilmy Sduce all served up on a bakery style roll.
I( s another gredt grown up taste just for you, only ilt McDonald's It !
5rg OUf newe6t ,
grown up
Buy one Crispy Chicken Deluxe
Get one
re,
Not vaud with any other offer.
One coupon per customer per visit.
Valid only at the McDonald's restaurants in Waterloo
. .
Expires March 30, 1997
5rg OUf newe6t ,
grown up
Buy one Crispy Chicken Deluxe
Get one
Fre
Not valid with any other offer.
One coupon per customer per visit.
VaJid only at the McDonald's restaurants in Waterloo
March 30, 1997
RON
"Vanaka Naka Levu"
Bill Gray
4B Comp - Sun of a Bit!
A
fter returning from the budget traveler's dream
of Tavewa, we made a mad dash around the
town of Lautoka to cash traveler's cheques,
payoff our tab at David's Place, grab some lunch (best
damn pizza in the southern hemisphere) and some-
how made it back to the wharf to catch the boat to our
next destination in Fiji - Beachcomber's Island. And
this was a real boat - a big sailing vessel that barely
rocked in the gentle seas.
Beachcomber Island is extremely different than Tavewa.
It's a pre-packaged, gJossy-brochured, over-priced tourist
haven for those who want to lie .in the sun without leaving
behind the amenities of home. As such, it was also twice
as expensive as Tavewa. For the money, we got to sleep
on bunk-beds (strategically sized to prevent sharing) in a
SO-bed donn. We also got, however, hot showers, full-ser-
vice bar (with ridiculous prices) and three amazing buffet
meals a day. The breakfast meal included fresh fruit jwces
and made-to-order omelets while the dffiners ranged
from fresh seafood casseroles to 3/4" thick steaks grilled
to perfection, often with homemade bread.
August 18 - August 28, Fiji II
The island itself is extremely small - we walked around
the entire island in about ten minutes - but most of the
action takes place on the main (and best) beach on the
south side of the island. The main problem with that is the
inability to find a qwet piece of beach as on Tavewa and
just let the sun melt away any accumulated stress. Instead
we settled for the empty balcony of the main building
which offered a commanding view of the main beach as
well as the nearby even-more-expensive Paradise Island
resort. This is where we spent the majority of our days,
soaking up the sun in relative isolation, reading, and
watching everyone around us spend lots of money.
Po/yr/Sinll Dallce Review PIIlJ/o OOllrtesy Bill Gray
Money was the key difference between everyone else
on this island and us. As we sat there, barely able to afford
one $3.50 milkshake a day as a luxury, we watched scores
of tourists paying exorbitant fees for tropical drinks and
any of the variety of activities they have available for your
amusement - in case lying on a tropical island isn't your
idea of a vacation. The most obvious of these activities
was the parasailing, in which they hook you to a para-
chute and a power boat and take you for an aerial tour
around the island. Since we could walk around the island
in under ten minutes, the aerial ride took only two or three
and just didn't seem worth the money. Yet people were
lining up to go. The other popular activity was the jet-ski
rental. This was actually humourous as people who had
no idea how to ride these things took them out at
extremely high speeds into deep water, then spent most
of their rental time trying to get back on the jet-ski after
wiping out.
. We did work one scuba diving trip into the budget,
The Sandford Fleming Foundation
4306 Carl Pollock Hall, University of Waterloo
Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 3G1
Waterloo Campus Activities
8884008
sff@dean
Engineering Debates: Finals held TODAY (March 14) in DC 2Sn.
Student Travel Grants: Available to students participating in technical conferences. Contact Prof. Herb Ratz,
x5175 for further information.
Emergency Loan Funds: SFF has made available funds for short-leon emergency loans, interest free for 90
days. These loans are available to engineering undergraduates, on either an academic or work term. Contact
the Student Awards office for further information.
The John Fisher Award for leadership
The John Asher Award for Leadership is made from time
to time to a graduating student whose activities
throughout hislher academic career have made significant
contributions 10 Co-operatlve Engineering Education.
Nominations for the Award can originate from student
groups, faculty members and the Foundation.
Nominations should document the nominee's
contributions and other support tor the nomination.
Contributions are to have a professional orientation and
can Involve student activities, the Sandford Fleming
Foundation wor1< or other appropriate functions.. Letters
from colleagues, faculty members, and others
knowledgeable of the nominee's efforts will be given
consideration.
The Award at Convocation, consists of a Citation and an
Honorarium of $1,000. For more information, contact the
Sandford Aeming Foundation. The deadline for
nominations is April 1, 1997.
An organization devoted to the advancement 01 Engineering Education.
conti1rued on page 5
amtinued from page 4
and went to witness a world-famous shark feecting at a
dive site known as '''The Supennarket" because just about
anything you want to see will be there. Due to the shape
of the coral, the othen-vise calm sea had huge swells
around the dive site, and as we watched the guy hand-
feeding sharks, we were tossed about like feathers in a
strong wind by the surge. Suffering many scrapes and
cuts on the coral, we eventually moved off into calmer
waters for an incredible tour of the reef wall, complete
with a huge moray eel and many curious sharks swim-
ming just close enough to make us slightly uncomfortable.
Given the party-like atmosphere of the island, it was no
surprise that every night the main building was full of the
drunken rowdiness that I hadn't seen since Australia. The
house-band tried to get everyone involved in something
called "The Bula Dance" which is actually just a toned-
down mix of The Macarena and Taking Care of Business
dances. Watching 50-year-old overweight Americans
doing this was particularly amusing. There was also
games of 'make-yourself-dizzy-then-run' and a Polyne-
sian dance review, where I learned that each area in Poly-
nesia had its own style of dance.
After our stay on Tavewa, this all seemed extremely
contrived and we just didn't have the desire to take part in
it Which pretty much sums up our entire time on Beach-
comber. Nice place to visit, but it was so forced. that we
found ourselves missing the cold showers and mouse-
infested bures of Tavewa. But the Fijian sun was still a
potent stress-reliever and when the time came, we were
reluctant to leave. Although by this point, we were both
starting to feel homesick, and were somewhat excited to
be moving one step closer to home.
The ride back to Lautoka was calm and quiet, as they
put the sails up to take advantage of the stiff breeze. Our
flight wasn't for another two days, so we decided to kill
some time in Lautoka. We ran into Jan, a friend from
Tavewa who had made Fiji his yearly vacation destina-
RON ARRIOR
TIle 5.S. TlliTni, tile ixJatlmt brougilt Bill 10 &ndrronw's lslmld PlloloQlIIr/IS!I Bm Gray
returning to it's home city, it can only charge bus fare ingly modem international airport. We browsed the duty-
instead of full fare. Which works out great for tourists, but free stores for quite a while until it was time to board our
not so great for taxi drivers. Along the way we were flight to our next destination - The Cook Islands. As the
delayed as a road-crew fixed a portion of the road. One plane left the ground and perfonned a series of acrobatic
guy was breaking the asphalt manually with a long iron moves for no apparent reason, I looked down upon Fiji
rod while another was painting the middle line on the and wondered if I would ever return to this place. The
road by hand. time spent on Tavewa was truly spectacular and I have
That night, we were awakened by a loud indiscernible never felt more relaxed and peaceful in my life. The island
noise. Upon investigation, the noise was the sound of the was soon out of Sight, and I settled back for the remainder
sugar-ame fields next to the hotel on fire. The fire roared of the flight and enjoyed Air New Zealand's amazing in-
into the pitch-black night creating an awesome spectacle. flight service.
Our final day in Fiji was uneventful as we packed,
kicked around Nadi for a while then went to Fiji's surpris-
tion, and he showed us around the large marketplace that r---------------------------------------
sold everything from junk souvenirs for tourists to pro-
duce for the locals. Jan turned out to be a master barterer
and taught us the finer points of dealing with Indian mer-
chants.
He also told us that the average wage of a Fijian worker
is about $l/hour. A mickey of rum that runs $6/L at the
duty free store is $18 normally. We now understood why
the duty-free people wanted us to sell them liquor. On
that note, Jan told us that he had taken a friend of his (and
his entire family) to McDonald's one day as a treat, since
most Fijians can't afford that kind of luxury. Which
explained why the McDonald's had been full of Euro-
peans and North Americans when we had eaten there.
We had been advised to visit The Northern Oub for
lunch. There are several clubs in lautoka, mostly throw-
backs from the gentlemen's clubs from the days of British
rule, but they still exist today for Fiji's upper-class to relax.
Being foreign visitors, we were admittOO on a guest pass
and were amazed at what we saw - lush lawns, tennis
courts, a beautiful swimming pool and subsidized drinks
and food. We sat with Jay, a friend of ours from Tavewa
and Beachcomber's who had been sailing around the
world for 5 years now on his yacht, and chatted about
everything under the sun until our excellent curry arrived
(some of the best curry outside of India, according to Jay).
Unfortunately, we had packed our swim suits already, so
we couldn't take a dip in the pool to escape the oppressive
humidity that had taken over the main island.
It was soon time to go, however, and we caught a taxi
back to Nadi. Due to government regulations, if a taxi is
How to play
Tug-o-War with a bus
Michael Olley
Bus Push Co-Director
2A Elec - Derelecs
H
ve you ever wanted to parade down Univer-
sity or King Street singing songs of freedom,
r perhaps dreamt of pulling a bus with about
a hundred of your closest friends? Well tomorrow (Sat-
urday March 15th), you'll have the chance to do both!
Yes, the 21st annual Bus Push is finally here. For the
uninitiated, this is a event organized by the Engineering
Society to raise money and promote the Big Sisters of
Kitchener-Waterloo and Area. This is a special year for the
Bus Push as it is K-W Big Sisters' 25th anniversary.
Despite the fact that it is called the Bus Push we do actu-
ally pull the bus. To clear up the confusion, the first Bus
Push was actually a bus push. The biggest engineers got
behind a bus and began to push. Of course, this resulted in
a long, arduous Bus Push which involved only a few engi-
neers. To speed things up and increase participation, ropes
were used, and since you can't push with ropes, we had to
pull the bus. How vcr in the b<ldilion of thai(! 'W brave
engineers, it has rcmaint'd the Bus Push.
Now that vC'rything is ready to go this year, we n !d
your help to pull the bus (bL'Causc Ed and r ,)0'1 do i.t
alon ). At approximaleJyl0:00am on bl akfust
will be servL'CI for the participants in POETS. Then lh \ par-
ticipants will begin the long pull from the E1 to
Market Square in Kilchener, aft r which lh('y will get a
free ride back to UW, where lunch will be provided.
For those who COUl'Cted pledgcs, thank-you very much.
Those who collect Significant amount will receive a T-shirt
as well as prizes, with the top two plcdge-gcttcrs receiving
a snowboard and a bike. Also, any class who raises more
money than Jason Van Dyk will receive $150 to rent a
pump and can use the rest for whatever they want.
If there arc any questions feel free to contact myself or
Ed Fletcher at mfdoUey@noviceand aefl tch@mechanical,
respectively.
Thanks to all our sponsors (see the ad on the back page)
and I look forward to seeing you all out on University St
tomorrow for an amazing day.
RON ARRIOR
Campus Day '97
Nicola Basey
2A Enviro-Chern
Lisa Kropf
2A Chern
C
ampus Day '97 brought many prospective
Wa terloo engineers to the CPH Foyer this past
Tuesday, March 11th. Although numbers were
slightly down, the day was very successful overall.
The slight drop in numbers may be attributed to the
increasing number of students who have participated
in the Wednesday tours provided throughout the
term. In addition, Shadow Day was particularly suc-
cessful this year. There was a good turnout of volun-
teers, including demonstrators, tour guides, and orga-
nizers who were willing to offer insight into engineer-
ing at Waterloo. The visiting parents and students
were able to meet with both faculty and students, giv-
ing them a balanced picture of their program of inter-
est.
The Chemical Engineering department offered a partic-
ularly diversified tour, beginning with an interesting pre-
sentation on risk assessment and probability. They were
also able to observe a Heavy-Water Plant Prototype, a
Open Monday to Thursday 11:3Oam to 1 am Frtday and Saturday 11:3Oam to 20m
11 f1I
tillation colurrm, and a computer simulation of process
controL The tour included a demonstration on polymers
perfonned by two graduate students. High school stu-
dents interested in the envirorunental aspect of Otemical
Engineering were shown two applications in that area of
interest. The destruction of pollutants by light was an
interesting visual display, as a neon solution changed
drastically in colour, indicating the success in destroying
the antifreeze pollutant. The tour ended appropriately
with the final demonstration being conducted by Prospec-
tor Sharer (a.ka. Indiana Jones), who outlined the process
of bacterial prospecting for gold.
Campus Day enabled the volWlteers to give interested
individuals a good perspective on engineering, including
a detailed discussion on the co-op program and its bene-
fits and of university life in general. The fact that the num-
ber of visitors was down from previous years allowed for
more one-on-one interaction, which in turn allowed the
guides, demonstrators, and organizers to answer some
specific questions and to share their experiences. On
behalf of the organizers of Campus Day '97 we;' d like to
thank all of those who volWlteered their time and made
the day a success.
E.NGINEE.RING
S OCI E. TY
C&D Exam Hours
For all your Caffeine Sugar, and Olocolate
needs during those stressful exam days
8:00 am - 4:00 pm
Monday to Friday
We're not closed for the term till
4:00pm on
Thursday April 24th
We'll be back for the Spring term
at 8:00 am on
the first day of lectures
RON
Cutting Edge Technology at
Research in Motion
OmarBarake
Elec - Class of 1996
W:
en people ask me where I work I say "Over
in the Bell building." Most people recognize
the "Bell" building on the comer of Phillip
and Columbia Street but they usually don't know that
there is another telecommunications company in there
as well: Research In Motion, or RIM for short. Due to
our rapid expansion, my answer to the above question
will soon be, "Over in the RIM/Bell building" as we
are going to be taking over the lower half of the build-
ing in the next couple of months.
Our company was founded over a dozen years ago by a
fourth year electrical engineering student from Waterloo,
who had an opportunity to start his own business as an
undergrad. Since his undergrad days, Mike Lazaridis has
transfonned RIM from a contract engineering finn into a
wireless communications leader.
RIM makes wireless moderns. This is a very simple
statement that has many fundamental implications. Our
modems are not plugged into a cell phone; RIM's
modems actually contain a complete RF transmitter and
receiver. They run on data only cellular networks, and the
charges are based on the amount of data that is transmit-
ted rather than by the amount of time. These modems
allow users to transfer files, send and receive messages,
faxes, or e-mail regardless of their location.
To be a leader in this field requires cutting edge design
in RF, antenna, low power digital, analog, operating sys-
tems, Digital Signal Processing, firmware, and packaging.
The best illustration of these design requirements integrat-
ed into one product is RIM' s Inter@ctive Pager -- the
world's first two way pager.
In a clam-shell design, the Inter@ctive Pager has an
antenna embedded right into the device's LCD lid, remov-
ing the antenna from view, but making the gain of the
antenna directly related to the position of the'LCD panel.
To compensate for that fact, RIM's antenna designer built
it to take advantage of field reflection into the radio shield.
His innovations increased the gain of the antenna above
the theoretical maximum by 2.5 Dbm.
Most other radio manufacturers only use the in-phase
part of the signal because it is simple to use and has been
around since the dawn of radio! But engineers at RIM say
why do what has already been done? The radio frequency
design of all of RIM's radios allows the decoding of both
the in-phase and quadrature (lQ) signals, which increases
the effective signal to noise ratio. The circuit used in our
radios is more straightforward and is able to decode both,
but it took a leap of faith and a willingness to try some-
thing radically different to bring this innovation to the
market.
The bulk of the digital subsystem in the Interctive
Pager was created from commercial, off-the-shelf compo-
nents. However, this philosophy is changing at RIM
because there is no way to further reduce the power con-
sumption or the physical size of our products unless we
go to an ASIC. To date, even without an ASIC, we have
been able to achieve lower power and higher integration
because of strategic partnerships with companies like
Intel, who provide us with custom integrated parts.
A 2 Watt wireless modem requires a power supply that
is able to supply 1 amp of current for up to a couple of sec-
onds for transmitting. In terms of batteries, this can be
achieved by using a six AA battery tack, a large lantern
battery or some other high capacity, high drive battery.
But there is obviously no room for such a huge power
source in our tightly integrated hand-held products. Our
design uses two AA alkaline batteries to charge a tempo-
rary NiCad rechargeable battery. The iCad is used for
transmitting power, because iCad cells have high drive
ability and the alkalines are used for charging because
they have a lot of capacity.
Even the packaging design of our products is revolu-
tionary. RIM is one of the first companies in North Ameri-
ca to try Stereo-Lithography (SLA) for working prototype
parts. SLA is a process that allows you to literally 'print' a
three dimensional working model in rigid plastic. Its use
in the pager makes us the first
company in North America to
use the SLA model to create a
full commercial quality injec-
tion mold for producing mil-
lions of plastic housings.
RIM's radio firmware
includes sophisticated algo-
rithms which increase the effec-
tive receive sensitivity of the
radio to that of a base station.
These algorithms are tailored to
the lQ nature of the radio and
are able to r Jiably reproduce
more of the signal resulting in
the better senSitivity. In addi-
tion, these algorithms can actu-
ally correct for an aging base
station allowing our radios to
maintain high performance in
areas where other modems fail.
ll1e operating system used in
the Inter@ctive Pager is an
event based, multitasking pro-
prietary operating system,
which was developed at RIM
and removes the need to inter-
face directly to the wireless
modem. This means that the
same application can be used
on multiple networks because
of the common interface to the
operating system..lt also allows
the user to customize the pager
for her/his use, by deciding
which applications they want
to run.
Although there are distinct divisi ns in the functionality
of th pager, there i a ynel'gy that is required to getthem
to work together efficiently. This is also reflected in the
work environment at RIM where th interactions of hard-
ware, DSP, software, RF, mechanical and marketing work
tog ther to produce the n t gen ration wirel product.
Don't get th impression that the work is all done now
and we are sitting back comfortably on our laurels watch-
ing this stuff sell. Nothing could be further from the truth.
ll1e next generation of products we are working on will
make the current technology look like a black and white
1V.
OmarBarake
ASIC Designer
BASc. Electrical Engineering, 1996
University of Waterloo
Omar@rim.net
see: www.rim.net for more information about the
Inter@ctive Pager, our other products and job opportuni-
ties.
the W ir e less
Side
We've got career
opportunIties for:
RON ARRIOR
Great Northern Concrete Toboggan Race
Frosh Week revisited
Dennis Hicks
48 Civil Engineering-Invincivil
A
s outlined in the previous issue, 1997 GNCTR
was dominated this year by two Waterloo
Civil Engineering teams placing 1st and 3rd
overall at the event. Waterloo's SNOW WARRIORS
beat the critics senseless with a hot, steerabJe "no-need
-to-lean" entry which placed 3rd overall and walked
away with "Best Technical Report". This article tells
their story. If last week's barrage of Snow Fear articles
left you wanting more, read on.
The Adventure Begins
For the Snow Warrior team, the event began with a 5
1/2 hour journey on disputably the fastest tour bus ever to
drive to Ottawa via Peterborough (for whatever reason).
Upon arrival to the current hometown of Jean Chretien,
the Warriors refrained "Go, Go, Go" as the driver struck
fear in the hearts of some local commuters (buses stop
slower than cars, mon ami). A cleanup was definitely
required on aisle 3.
By some fluke, the Warrior bus arrived at the Citadel
Inn early Wednesday afternoon. We're still not sure if the
hotel knew just what they were agreeing to when they
admitted 400 drunk engineering students at the same
time. r suppose ]50 complaints and 35 checkouts on the
first night was pretty good fishing, all things considered.
Brick breweries and whoever the hell makes that nasty
alcoal that goes into batch can be thanked for the mayhem
that night. However, all twenty-four teams (and some
parent chaperones from some school group) enjoyed the
"comfort suite" bash that Snow Warrior hosted, though
none respected. the batch. (eh Batch boy?)
Earlier that evening the teams were introduced on stage
during the race order selection. The Warriors "Go, Fight,
Win" chant was delivered to the crowd of engineering
students in traditional Waterloo style: loud and strong.
Stuntman Stu from Ottawa's lCX>.9FM "The Bear" radio
station hosted the evening with a certain /lje ne sias quoi".
He softly whined about his dry cleaning bill as he was
covered from forehead to groin with stickers from nearly
every participating team .. while holding a beer. Picture
that.
The competing teams were very creative in their intro-
ductions. The Warriors were extremely impressed by the
enthusiasm of the University of Toronto's Frozen Banana
team and their introduction of "Hey Kids" followed by a
ruckus rendition of "U of T's in the House ....... OH MY
GOD!". The rap routine did take the name of the Lord in
vane, but it was very entertaining none the less. Some of
the members of Invincivil would be proud to perform it
for you ... if you give them beer. Queen's had no clue as to
what team spirit was all about, so they started banging
their engineering jackets on the floor. The collective opin-
ion is that they could not quite cover the hotel bill, so they
were helping out the cleaning staff. The Warriors chose
7th spot in the race order so as to see the results of the first
six runs and get the toboggan down the hill before the
course was destroyed by the other competitors.
A Yuk Yuks comedy night followed the race order
selection. The meeting room at the Citadel was charged
with so much residual energy that the comedians were
fighting a dull roar that even the public address system
could not match. I found that the last comic summed it all
up by opening with something close to: "You are the most
impolite group of fucking people that I have ever met .... .!
just smoked four joints and drank four beers, thought r d
come down to your leveL"
The Snow Warrior comfort suite o l l o w ~ the comedy
night. Free beer and batch abounded from the Snow War-
rior taps. A certain "batch boy" shall remain nameless,
Members if tire Snow WIlrrior TI'II1II PlrJlo COllrtesy Deltnis Hicks
_ I
but proved that batch must be respected. at alllirnes.
Day Two (only some of us remember it)
Day two of the event opened with a lovely banana and
muffin breakfast. The toboggan was just arriving, but that
was OK since we didn't need it until then anyway. The
display was promptly set up and the teclmical exposition
was underway at Carleton's Porter Hall. The onlookers
marveled at the brilliant display of 3D animated artistry
that professionally demonstrated the toboggan's features.
In the foreground, the tec1mical exposition department of
Snow Warrior had set the sled on a beautifully hand-craft-
ed wooden stand. At the Snow Warrior exposition, visi-
tors were greeted by warm handshakes and an earful of
information from the team members who made the trip to
Ottawa.
The evening brought an improvisational talent show,
with the University of Maryland taking top honours from
the Snow Warrior staff. Their surprise topic of "You
walked into your parents bedroom unannounced" was
not without multi-positional highlights. The fellows from
the Ecole de Technologie Superiere Voyager team were
rudely interrupted when some know-it-all snapped their
truss that explained "What an Engineer does witll h.is
spare time". We all know what that fine individual can do
in his spare time don' t we?
Oliver's pub (similar to the Bomber) hosted day two's
drinking festivities. A solid contingent of the Snow War-
rior team made it out to Oliver's that night. The" self clear-
ing dance floor" was invented as a moshing technique
that evening ... almost as impressive as the sled itself.
Although it is true that your good author dances like a girl,
Snow Warrior had a fantastic evening.
The technical exposition continued on day three. The
sled was transported to the Carlington Ski Hill in the after-
noon. Upon inspection of the hill, it was found that the
finish line actually did occur before any run out and the
hill actually was on a 30 degree angle. The hard packed
granular run was to provide some extraordinary speeds
(and crashes) on race day. Three foot high sidewalls were
created for the run, as well as a safety snow wall and hay
bail barricade for those with brakes that would not effec-
tively penetrate one foot of solid ice.
Been Drunk Since I Left
That evening, an old-fashioned Ottawa pub crawl was
organized. Snow Fear, Snow Warrior and Mike Wagle
had a super night of spirited partying, heavy drinking and
waving their fingers about, respectively. Race newsletters
slammed the Snow Warrior team for employing direction-
al control, stating '1 personally don't think any steering
column will work on Saturday". My thoughts were that if
a failure were to occur, another component of the steering
system would be the culprit. Oh ... I'm sorry ... he didn't
know what he was talking about.
Saturday brought cold temperatures and excellent race
conditions. The Warriors took the hill by storm with their
coveralls outfitted with fur-lined hoods. The Warrior
toboggan found itself coated. with ice after a night exposed
to the elements. After preparing the sled for the race, the
Snow Warrior riders gathered at the highest point in
Ottawa for a ride that broke the city speed limit. After a
few moments of silence the pushers drove the sled for-
________ ------ -- __ ._ . 1
ward on its virgin race perfonnance. The sled seemed to
lffiderstand the course as it plummeted down the center-
line of the track. After attaining a speed of 52 km/hr at
the bottom the run (illegal on some streets), the serrated
blade brake was deployed. In a fraction of a second, the
rear torsion springs pushed the rotating brake plate into
position. Catching the hard surface of the ice, the force on
the rear brake cables exceeded their capacity and failed.
Unhampered by brakes or hay bales, the Warrior sled
exploded into the snow barricade that was constructed for
just such an occasion. Findmg everything intact after a
quick rrwentory of body and sled parts, the Snow Warrior
riders jubilantly prajsed the safety features of the Snow
Warrior sled.
The second run saw the installation of a heavier brake
cable and a shallower angle of brake attack that was far
more effective.
A Legend That Just Won't Die
Sharctic Toboggan entered the race as an alumni team.
Scattered across southern Ontario, 14 members of last
year's historic sled team recreated their past glory with
two spectacular runs. The finish line was worse for wear
after the first Sharctic run. The gray and red juggemaught
snapped the "finish" sign at its base, sandwiching a hay-
bale between itself and the race organizer's Mustang. The
ripping and crunching sounds emitted from the crash
later proved to be the front cowling giving way rather
than the fender buckling as we had first thought. Sharctic
did not return to Waterloo after the race ... but the legend
will live forever.
RON
We are ... 'Ve are ...
The awards banquet ""'as held in the ball room f the
Citadel Inn. The Snow Fear squad brought h Ine the first
place 'win, prming that Waterloo is th best engineering
school in lorth America. Distinctions presented to the
Snow Warrior team included nominations for. Best Con-
crete, Best Overall Design, Best Technical Display, Peo-
ple's Choice, Best Speed and Best Aesthetics. Th team
brought home top honours for Best Technical R port and
3rd Place Overall Sl:andmg. On behalf of the project man-
agers, I would like to extend my congratulations to all
members of the team for their contribution and profes-
sionalism.
R
After the awards banquet, a team member approad1ed .
me and asked "Well, what's our next project?". In my .
opinion, the Snow Warrior team operated as a midsized
business that would be extremely successful in the "real
Thnlllgil till! fi"isilIiJl PIKlIo Col/rle:y iJellIIis Hids
world". It's departmentalized struc- r---------------------------,
ture made very good use of resources
and accomplished an extremely high
percentage of its goals. The concrete
toboggan race is an excellent oppor-
tunity for undergraduates to learn
applied skills that are very attractive
to employers. It should be supported
and encouraged by the Department
of Civil Engineering in the years to
come.
WIN..
How?
Corel CADI
Corel
Visual CAD
Full versions!
Srp. $799.99 1 $445.99
Fill out a ballot in-store! Costs just $ 2
bucks! All proceeds go to UW's TEAM
PROPeh?NE and the 1997 Propane
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Hours: 95. Mon-Fri.
Student L.ife C<ntrl'. Lower L<vel.
8884567. ext. 6187
Why IYH'istory?
(Industrialisation In Europe) ~
(an "Impact of Techno'ogy" electlvel) ~
Want to understand
where you are going to be working?
If you're always. on the go take us. with you.
History 243 looks at how the workplace has
changed and how the changes have affected
society and Individuals
A pager from Bell Mobility is the easy and affordable
way to stay in the loop.
between 1800 and 19801
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APPROVEO AGENT
Check It Out!
. . : . ~ = - - --
An epic of stellar proportions
The birth, life, and death of stars
W:
en you look into the sky on a dear night
you notice all the tiny points of light shining
down on you, and "Wow, look at all the
stars ...... .I think I see the Big Dipper!" you exclaim. If
you were in Western Europe you would call it "the
Wagon" or "the Plough". The ancient Greeks regarded
it as the tail of lithe Great Bear". For centuries humani-
ty has been in awe of the heavens and all it contains; so
much so that there have been 88 constellations named
for the resemblance of something on Earth. Romanti-
cized by poets and lovers, questioned by philosophers,
hailed by ancient cultures, and studied by astronomers
and physicists, stars have been the topic of wonder
since the dawn of our time. We can't reach out and
touch them, but now, thanks to centuries of observa-
tion and research, we know what they are. No one
will ever see a star being born and dieing, since it
would take about 10 billion years for a star like our
Sun, but the process is known. Imagine for a minute
that you were around for the birth of our Sun ....
Stage 1
In the cold regions of space an interstellar cloud of gas
sits spinning slowly. It only has a temperature around 10
Kelvin but its size is immense (10
14
to 10
15
km across).
Typical clouds contain thousands of times the mass of our
sun, which is 2 x 1033& in the form of cold atomic and
molecular gas. Nothing spontaneous is going to happen
to this cloud without the help of an outside influence, such
as a pressure wave from dying star, or the ionization from
the formation of a nearby 0- or B-type star. The distur-
bance breaks the cloud into tens or thousands of smaller
pieces of gas that could possibly form a star. This break
up takes a few million years.
Stage 2
To form a star the size of our sun, a cloud with between
one and two times the mass of the Sun is needed. It is
about 100 times the size of our solar system, a few hun-
dredths of a parsec(a parsec is apyroximately 3 x 10
13
km), and has a central density of 1tP particles/ cm
3
. Grav-
ity causes the cloud to contract. As this happens the cloud
radiates large amounts of energy into space keeping the
temperature at 10K except the centre which is a cozy
lOOK The cloud fragment centre reaches a point where it
becomes so dense that the radiation is absorbed. thereby
raising the temperature of the gas. This increased temper-
ature causes an increase in pressure.
Stage 3
After tens of thousands of years of contraction, the
cloud forms a sphere about the size of our Solar System,
10,000 times the size of the Sun. The centre has achieved a
temperature of lOJXXlK with the surrounding gases hav-
ing little or no increase because they are still eX[>elling
energy into space. The central density is now HY parti-
cles/ cm
3
. The increasing central density causes more gas
to be drawn to the centre, now called the protostar, but the
radius is shrinking since the internal pressure is unable to
counteract gravity's pull. The cloud is also spinning faster
because of the Law of Conservation of angular momen-
tum (if an object of constant mass contracts then the veloci-
ty must increase).
Stage 4
The protostar is continually r i n k i n ~ raising the densi-
ty, temperatures, and pressures. It has been 100,000 years
since this fragment was formed, now the core temperature
has reached 1,ooo)XX)K Electrons and protons are whip-
ping around at hundreds of kilometers per second but the
temperature is not enough for hydrogen fusion. The
entire sphere is now the size of Mercury's orbit and has a
surface temperature of a few thousand Kelvin. Contrac-
tion has slowed due the increased pressures but has not
stopped.
StageS
The protostar is now about 10 times the size of the sun
It has a surface temperature around 6(XX)K and a core tem-
perature of 5,000,DOOK, still not enough to overcome the
repulsive forces of the protons.
Stage 6
Finally, after 10 million years a star is formed. The
radius is approximately 1,000,000 km and has an internal
temperature of 10,ooo,oooK, just enough to ignite nuclear
fusion. It weighs roughly the same as the Sun but contrac-
tion is not quite finished.
Stage 7 - The Main Sequence
In the next 30 million years the star contracts until inter-
nal pressure and gravity are balanced. The core tempera-
ture reaches 15,000,oooK and the stuface temperature of
6000K. The central density reaches 10
26
particles/cm
3
(100g/cm
3
) and the rate of energy creation
equals energy dissipation The main sequence is where a
star spends most of its life. In the case of our Sun that is
about 10 billion years, and it is about halfway through this
period now.
Our Sun is considered to be a low-mass star, the most
corrunon type of star. The rate of formation of a star is
linked to its mass, and a low-mass star takes longer to
form than a high-mass star(3 to 8 times the mass of the
Sun). This is due to gravitational forces, which are greater
in a high-mass star. Gravity causes rapid contraction of
the cloud therefore it reaches the lO)XX),oooK faster than
the low-mass star. It only takes about 1 million years for a
high-mass star to form, but it also dies faster than a low-
mass star since it burns its fuel quickly.
Coming to an end
There are a couple of ways for a star to die. Looking at a
low-mass star: after 10 billion years the hydrogen core
depletes as it forms helium and hydrogen fusion is isolat-
ed to the outer layers of the star. The weaker gas pressure
loses out to gravity and the core of helium contracts. This
energy heats the outer layers and ca.uses them to expand,
forming a red giant The helium core eventually reaches
temperatures where it fuses into carbon with a helium
burning shell and a hydrogen burning shell overlyin&
called a red supergiant. The outer layers become unstable
and drift into space leaving behind the small core called
the white dwarf. As it cools it becomes a yellow dwarf,
then a red dwarf, and finally a black dwarf, a cold object
resisting gravitational collapse by electron
degeneracy(electrons can only be brought so close togeth-
er .. .see Quantum Physics).
The death of a high mass star is a little more dramatic.
The core of a high mass star can reach higher tempera-
tures to fuse heavier elements, it goes from hydrogen,
helium, carbon, oxygen, neon, magnesium, silicon, and
iron Fusion of iron does not produce energy and, just like
a building losing its foundation, the star implodes. The
collapse is at such high speeds and temperatures that the
iron core is broken down into electrons, protons, neutrons,
and photons. The electrons and protons are crushed
together to form neutrons and neutrinos. The neutrinos
escape leaving only neutrons eventually coming in con-
tact with each other. When this happens the density is
about 1014g/an3, which is past the point of equilibrium
between pressure and gravity. The ball of neutrons
rebounds and sends a tremendous shock wave through
the remnants of the star at high speed causing it to
explode in a supernova.
Just recently ...
A legal loophole has been found in UK law that
could allow human cloning. The technique used for
cloning involved adult DNA but the law only states
that humans can not be cloned using embryos .........
The Hubble Space Telescope is getting a new pre-
scription to increase its vision by a factor of 100. This
will allow the Hubble to see further into the universe,
giving a new eye on the interior of galaxies and other
objects that have been a mystery .........
Some of you may have already heard of DVD (Digi-
tal Video Disc) and to some of you it is just an
acronym. DVD is a new type of compact disc that
stores from around 7 to 27 times the amount of infor-
mation in a regular CD(650MB). The technology uses
a smaller wavelength for the laser giving approximate-
ly 4.7 gigabytes per disk. For higher storage capacity a
disc was developed having a semi-transparent layer so
two layers exist on one side(8.5GB). Then a double-
sided dual layer format was created giving a total of
17GB of information, enough for 8 hours of video
when used in combination with MPEG-2 video com-
pression. Watch for it in the video, audio, and com-
puter industries this summer ............ .
__________ --=IB=-_C_IE_N_C_E_I_&_.. _...!!!!I!!!!!!!!!!!IECHNOLOGY
Leonardo da Vinci, the Engineer?
Y
Ou've heard the name and probably associate it
with great artistic works such as the Mona Lisa or
The Last Supper, but few of you really know about
Leonardo da Vina. Yes he was an artist, but he was also a
philosopher, architect, mathematiaan, sdentist, sculptor,
inventor, writer, and he was an engineer.
He was born as the illegitimate son of San Piero and
Caterina of Vma April 15, 1452. He didn't receive any for-
mal education but learned on his own, through reading
and
observa-
tion. Notebooks were kept in which he jotted down
thoughts, drawings, inventions, and pieces of text that he
came across. His writings were in Italian, but were also
written in mirror images (above) since it was comfortable
to his left handed style and he didn't have a teacher telling
him that it was wrong. None of his ideas were ever con-
strained by ideologies of his time. He couldn't focus on
one area of study so he worked on whatever came to
mind, and he did it well. Leonardo was never really rec-
eral different
ideas to construct
impregnable
fortresses. One
design incorporat-
ed circular moats
with circular tow-
ers, so that fields
of view were
within the field of .
vision without
having to move, :
and having walls I- t. _ J/"
and that curve , >
when reaching
the top of the tower so that when ladders are placed
against the walls there is nothing to grab onto when the
soldier tries to climb (think about trying to have to climb a
semi-circle). He also dabbled in battle plans, artillery firing
plans, escape routes, attack routes, and diversion tech-
niques.
His second venture involves the design of weaponry.
These ideas were not made ognized in the scientific
community for his investi-
gations and theories
because he was not fonnally
educated. His critics were
too pompous to recognize
genius when they saw it.
little did they know that he
was about 200 years before
"He was a man who awoke
too early in the darkness,
while the others were still
asleep." Sigmund Freud
public because Leonardo
feared that they would use it
for the purposes it was
designed for. Often he
would change the diagrams
by adding a gear here and
there so that if someone did
his time, when people could actually build what he drew.
It would do no justice to this man if I tried to skim the
surface of all of his accomplishments so the small focus
will obviously be on his engineering abili-
- - --- ties.
t
I
j
,.
I
/.
I
1/

Military Architect and Engineer
His first ventures in engineering were
as military architect and engineer during
the period of 1490 to 1505; he served
under five different rulers. He spent
much of his time studying the fortresses
previously designed by such architects as
Francesco di Giorgio Martini and then
improving on them. Many break-
throughs in explosives and projectiles
were appearing during this time and forti-
fications had to withstand this type of
attack He embraced his work, like he did
with all tasks, and brought together sev-
find it, they would not be
able to construct it. He worked on and improved the
design of ballistae, crossbows( designing a machine-gun
like crossbow), handguns, projectile motion with drag(not
mathematically attempted until Newton), organ guns,
steam powered rifles, cannons, and other weapons that
would've made a general as giddy as a school girl. One
such idea was the dart-like missile(top right) which was
the early form of a high explosive artillery shell. He
intended for it to be launched using a catapult and it
would explode on impact. He also depicted a rocket
launcher (lower left)that would send a rock t 3 miles into
the air.
Elements of Machine Design
Automation was a hot topic on Leonardo's mind. H
designed numerous gear trains and incorporated them
into designs for machines that could automatically tum
the spit above his fireplace, to grinding grain, and spin-
ning silk. His thoughts on mechanisms led him to design
cams, worm gears(lower left), screws, springs, keys, rivets,
shafts, couplings, ratchets ... basically what is used today
except his designs were for wood instead of metal. One of
his more famous designs was that of the first bicyde(top
right). The idea of using angular momentum to propel a
person on two wheels was a breakthrough of the time.
The bicyde did not emerge until the early 18005.
Leonardo da Vina also had ideas for the submarine,
helicopter, hang-glider, fluid dynamics, and other inven-
tions with which he was not attributed credit for. He died
in 1519 with many of his notebooks lost. They have since
been recovered and are a wealth of information about his
life and thoughts. Leonardo is an example of someone
who did not limit himself to one area, but tried to be a
master of his surroundings. Which is what an engineer
should strive to be.
On the side ...
Marijuana research not up in smoke
Th U.S. ational Institute of Health(NIH) has said
that the potential therapeutic uses of marijuana should
be researched further. The Federation of American SQ-
entists pu hed for the NIH to carry out marijuana
research despite the political reasons hindering it in the
past. two-day workshop mvol ring]O NIH institutes
and divisions along with th National Institute on Drug
Abuse was h ld to discuss pr vious r search on the
therapeutic Heet of d Ita-9- tetrahydro-
cannabinol(IHC) and d termine what studies, if any,
should be col"lSid red. Currently THC is prescribed for
nausea and vomiting in cheno patients and for appetite
stimulation in AIDS patients.
Flywheel power
Research is currently lmderway, and has been for the
last 30 years, on using flywheels for storing electrical
energy instead of battery packs. TIle flywheel relies on
kinetic energy, as opposed to dlemical potential energy
in battery packs, to deliver powe' to the system it is dri-
ving. The flywheel(s) would be placed in buildings and
way stations to soak up surplus energy for use during
peak hours, or as back-up systems in case of a power
failure. These are relatively simple systems when com-
pared to a system used in an automobile because, in
large buildings, size is not a major factor. In an automo-
bile the flywheels have to be very compact, have a high
density, and spin at tremendous speeds. One system,
designed by Jack. Bitterly(mechanical engineer), uses a
12 inch diameter flywheel 3 inches thick spun in a vacu-
um housed by an aluminum container. Sitting on mag-
netic bearings, the wheel, made of densely packed car-
bon fibers, weighs in at 50 pounds and is spun at
100,(XX) rpm, yes 100,(XX) rpm (1700rps). Since it is in a
vacuum there is no drag and there is no friction from the
axle, meaning this could spin for a few hundred years or
so. This energy is harnessed by the motor that spins the
flywheel during recharging, which is used as a genera-
tor when not plugged in, and the energy is delivered to
the motors driving the wheels. Basically, it is an electric
car using flywheels to store energy instead of batteries.
If you arc in pcrfl)l'\11nn ',it is l'Sti01<lll't\thal
a car using 16 flywh('('b could trawl for 3(x) mil tmd, if
floon..>d, deliver approxim,\l 'ly HOO hoI. power. Not
too bad.
HaJe-Bopp has anivedll!
D as th> gr atest om'l in 400 year:;, I lale-
Bapp will be making its clOSt'Sl aprrexlch to the sun and
is visible with the nakL>d ey'. Com -\ I -laIc Barp was
discovered by Alan l fale and TI'OrThlS Bopp on July 23,
1995 outside of fupit r's orbit, even Uwn it wns 1000
times brighter than Comet I lalley at th samc disUln '.
Now is an extremely important time for viewers
oc'Causc the comet is approaching lh sun nnd will form
a larger coma around it:; nuclew> plus t1 Inrgl'r tail of icc
and debris melted by the sun. 'The be;l viewing limes
arc going 10 be latc March/early April with the best
viewing times during cloudless, dark skk>s without a
moon. Early mornings from March 11 to March 21,
around 5:30am, looking in the northeast sky 20-24
degrees from horizon. Then from March 21 to mid
May, evenings, 100lGng in the northwest sky 25-35
degrees from horizon. The comet can be seen in the
evening during the whole trip btlt these are the best
times.
RON OR
On being
ringed
Bill Gray
4B Comp - Sun of a Bit!
Y
OU could feel it in the air. Euphoria. As we sat
around the living room, no longer wearing our
polyester pants and fluorescent shirts but rather
dressed in snazzy suits with silk ties, we all had the
same expression on our face - expectation. The time
drew near. We piled into the car for the short ride to
the Arts Lecture Hall for a quick briefing on what was
to cccur, then out to the Humanities Theater where the
dream finally happened - I received my Iron Ring.
The feeling was incredible. Birth, death and marriage
all rolled into one, as one friend mused.
I wonder if a non-Engineer will ever
understand the significance of
the ring, or the
ceremony. I've
explained too
many times to
recall what the
ring actually implies
- a voluntary moral
obligation to serve society to
the best of my abilities. I can't even begin to describe what
the ring means to me personally.
Everywhere I look, I see people unconsciously playing
with the ring upon their pinkie finger. While working on
labs, it is often removed and played with to somehow
help in the analysis. Wherever a group gathers,
a spontaneous clinking sound
erupts, as the ring is
banged against any avaiIabl surfa . Gestures are now
made ,.vi.th the pinkie finger extended, instead of the index
finger.
It was almost five years ago when I first heard of the
Iron Ring, and all the myths suuuunding it Now, I find
myself in disbelief that I have actually achieved the ring.
Looking at it, I am instantly reminded of the previous
years of hard work, ridiculous labs and cramming for
exams. I am also reminded of frosh weeks, scunts and Fri-
day afternoons at POETS. At the same time, I can see
ahead in time to a professional career where the skills and
knowled attained will somehow make me employable.
It is a symbol of my entire education, and will continue to
be a symbol of my entire career.
To those of you in fourth year who share the excitement,
I congratulate you. To those of you still striving to achieve
the Ring, be assured that it will be everything you
dreamed of, and more.
RON
If yo can
remember it, you
weren't really t ere
Kyle Corbett
48 Elec - Omega Sector
~
count down to the event started a mere 500
days before, with excitement growing as the date
drew nearer. The 365 day party indicted that illS
97 would be a night to remember. The evening of Feb-
ruary 27, 1997 will go down in history as one of the
greatest parties of all time.
111e day was packed full of fun and BE ERages.
Most classes started the day off with a bang with
Olampagne Breakfasts, with everyone eventually
ending up in POETS for more celebration. POETS
was alive with talk and colour (granted some was
really disgusting). Some of the graduating class
paraded through the first year office, graphics lab
to pictures with Dean Burns tryjng to escape the
Engineering buildings.
The excitement mounted as the
time to the Iron Ring Ceremony
approached. Loose Change
Louie's graciously gave each
Grad who arrived a .free refresh-
ment. The pre-Stag party drew to
a close so the Grads could slip out
of their special wardrobe and slip
into something more comfortable (and
not so skin tight).
The Stag was well worth the wait. As
someone said to me, " ... there is that
sense of bonding standing in a room
with all of your classma tes of 5 years half
naked. I didn't think I would enjoy it.
Looking back now, I believe that I would
have REALLY missed out if I wouldn't
have gone. I'm glad I did."
As the Organizers of Iron Ring Stag
1997 we would like the thank all the
security who were on hand in (asc of
uC
Any questions please contact
ARRIOR
problems, who all deserve a tap of the Ring. We would
also like to thank all of the attendees, for making it the
party it was. I would like to extend personal thanks to the
people who removed my dress, they were so gentle that I
did not even feel it (or remember it) coming off.
II A" Soc Co-Chairs
Mike Gibson Electrical
Rob Bambino Civil
liB" Soc Co-Otairs
Ed Fletcher Mechanical
Kyle Corbett Electrical
the WEEF office CPH 1323C x4893
...
RON
Dylan Luhowy
2A EnviroCiv - Toxic EnvEngers
W
e have a lot to be proud of. We're students
at a world-famous school. We're learning
from the brightest minds in Canada. I'm
proud of it, but it sometimes makes me feel pretty dumb.
In Donald Trimm's Calculus, he says that when I reach
the end of my Calculus studies, J should "look back and
compare how much I know at the end to how much I
knew at the beginning." Well, I'm about halfway through
and I don't know too much. I'm sure he'd tell me that it
just seems that way, but I'm really convinced that it's true.
If you ask me to evaluate a limit, I'll say it "does not exist";
I figure I have about a fifty percent chance of being right.
It's easy to convince yourself that you understand
something. Yesterday, I was steadfast in the belief that I
could write a proton balance equation for any reaction;
maybe even one that doesn't involve a hydrogen ion.
Then, my illusions were shattered. It was a painful expe-
rience, and something like it happens several times per
week.
I expect to know a lot when I leave here, but I also
expect to know of a lot more that I don't know. I appreci-
ate assignments and exams that encourage me to think, as
long as I don't fail them.
Nurturing reasoning skills requires time and effort. By
April, 2CXXl, I want to be an improved thinker, communi-
cator, and all that jazz, and I have other goals in mind, I'm
sure I'll have memories of this place that I'll still be laugh-
ing about by the time I retire in 2040. It's all part of the
learning process.
It's a shame that some people have such a competitive
attitude toward Jearning. I mean, it's not about how
much more you know than someone elsc, because I'll
guarantee that they know far more than you do about
some other subject. For example, a student in my Envi-
ronmental Assessment class likes to dazzle everyone with
his vast knowledge. He doesn't think I know what
resilience is, as it applies to an ecosystem, because I'm in
engineering. I wouldn't expect him to define a couple,
nor to explain the difference between stress and strain,
even though it's basic stuff to me. That doesn't mean he's
an idiot, it just means that we've chosen to study in differ-
entareas.
We're all smart, or else we wouldn't be here (this is
hardly Last Chance University). In a perfect world, sure,
we'd already know all this stuff and we wouldn't have to
be here (that's just in ca e somebody feels like being
smart). In a near-perfect world, everyone would accept
the fact that we're aJl in this together, and that our most
valuable learning tools are our fellow students. I don't
want to be made to feel stupid, and neither do you. We're
in an enviable position, being Maclean's "Leaders of
Tomorrow," so let's build a world where we solve prob-
lems together, and stop trying to cause them for one
anther.
ARRIOR
CLOUD 9 turns us inside-out
Wed, March 19 - Saturday March 22
8 pm each evening
Theatre of the Arts (in Modern Languages)
"CLOUD 9" is about relationships -between women
and men, men and men, women and women. It is about
sex, work, mothers, Africa, power, children, grandmoth-
ers, politics, money, Queen Victoria and sex. It begins in
1880.
"This is my ftrmily. Though for from home
We serve the Queen wherever we may roam.
J am a father to the natives here,
And father to my family so dear. "
So speaks Clive, the British Imperialist, at the start of
CWUD 9, Caryl Churchill's wild, carnal romp. Clive is
posted in Africa where he rules over everyone and every-
thing: his wife -
"J live Jor Clive. The whole aim oj my life
Is to be what he looks for in a wife."
But the marvellous trick is that Betty, his wife, is here
played by a male actor, reinforcing the image of a woman
doing her best to satisfy a man's ideals. The cross-gender
casting is as painful as it is humourous. But there's more,
for Clive also believes that it is his task to convert the
Africans to British - read 'civilized' here - customs and
behaviour:
"My boy's a jewel. Really has the knack.
You'd hardly notice that the fellow's black"
Joshua, the servant, replies:
"My skin is bltlck but oh my soul is white.
I hate my tribe. My master is my light.
I only live for him. As yau can see,
What white men UXlnt is what I uxm t to be. "
The play spins wildly as it explores sexual politics - the
young daughter is a rag doll since little girls are not
required to offer responses to the family; Clive, the Imperi-
alist, is driven mad for Mrs. Saunders, the liberated British
woman whose bed he inhabits with the frequency of a
rabbit; Harry, the Great White Hunter, expresses undying
passion for Clive's wife all the while arranging sexual
assignations with the black male servant and the family's
young son. We are in a Victorian world where appear-
ances matter and deceit and corruption are both forgiv-
able and enthusiastically endorsed.
Act Two is set in present.<fay London. Churchill's coup
is that she retains three of the first act characters - mother,
son, and daughter -- and she ages them by 25 years,
though the true passage of time is more than a hundred
years. But we are now in a world where pre<letermined
roles - sexual, gender, etc. - don't exist and we learn that
we have to make decisions for ourselves in order to be
happy.
Victoria, the daughter in the first act who was a rag doll,
is now in a marriage that has driven her slowly quite mad.
She needs to explore her own needs and begins a relation-
ship with Lin, a single mother who is also a lesbian; Mar-
tin, Victoria's husband, does his best to understand and
accept her restlessness but not without problems of his
own:
"You think l1amt to Juck Barbara. 1 don't. Well I do, but I
won't. Alld evell ifl did, what's II Juck between friends? Don't
en) agaill, Vioo),I'IIl not the sort oJman who Irlflkes toomen
cn;. .. My one aim is to give you rolling orgasms I ike I do other
women. So why the hell don't you have thelll?"
Perhaps th character Betty, who we met in Act One -
the woman who thought her life's duty was to fulfill her
husband's fantasy of a wife - best speaks for the play-
Tickets available at Theatre Centre Box Office
Humanities Building (Hagey Hall)
or call 888-4908
Backstage nt Cloud 9 piToto courtesy UW Drolllll iJqklrtment
wright. In Act Two we meet her, now played by a
woman, in mid-life. She has taken the huge step of leaving
Clive, her husband, in the hopes of discovering a life in
which she can exist and be a full person:
"I used to think Clive was the one who liked sex. But then I
Jound 1 missed iLl thought if Clive wasn't looking at me there
wasn't a person there ... (after revealing to us that she has finally
e).:perience sexual satisfaction through masturbation) Aftenmrds
I thought I'd betrayed Clive. But 1 felt triumphant because I was
a separate person from him. Sometimes 1 do it three times in one
night and it really is great fun."
And what has the play's title, CWUD 9, got to do with
all this? Caryl Churchill was interviewed prior to the
play's premiere and said:
(referring to the woman who ran the snack bar in the
rehearsal studio and who had come into one of the com-
pany's chat sessions)
"She came from a ltlrge, poor ftrmily, had I1Ulrried at sixteen
and had a very violent and unhappy marriage, with no pleasure
from sex at all...and after thirty years she had remarried. She told
us in quite a bit of detoil haw she and her new husband gradually
got their reltltionship together.
Finally she said: 'We may not do it as often as young people,
but when we have our organisms [sic] we're on Cloud Nine'"
Masters in Economics at UW
The Economics Department welcomes
applications from graduates in
Engineering into their MA program.
from Engineering may gain
direct entry into the graduate program
(regular and with as few as four
courses in undergraduate economics.
Teaching as istantships and scholarshlps
arc available to qualified applicants.
For filYther information please contact:
Pat Shaw, E onomies Dept.
Hagey Han 210, ext. 6556
.... " .... _ ................... .......... .. .... ..- ........ t ........ .
Remember to
These are hectic times in many people's
lives including mine. This is the reason
that I am rerunning this article. Not having
to write so much eases my mind slightly.
Certainly there isn't much that can be
said in words to ease mental stress, but
neither does naught. So how about a
story?
If I ever gained any wisdom from Walt
Disney, though questionable it is, this may
be it.
In 1983 I turned on my family's black
and white television one summer Sunday
evening in the comer of our basement.
Walt Disney's show was airing as it usual-
ly did in those days. I only watched for
few minutes then and another few min-
utes about an hour later. It was a live
action television motion picture. The story
was surprisingly socially conscious and
compassionate. I thought this unusual for
a company so commonly spreading evil
about.
Th story was of a boy who had a brain
disorder which caused him to have
N\fAJ
seizures. The boy was visiting relatives for
the summer in a rural town.
The boy, Rick was walking in a field
and he met a sweet girl who was close to
his own age. Rick and the girl talked and
became friends. Unsurely he began to
trust her a bit and told her about his
strange condition. Showing her warmth
she asked what she should do if he had a
seizure. He replied more relaxed that she
had to remember to tell him to breathe.
Later I saw a scene where Rick's family
was debating whether or not he was to
undergo an operation to sever the connec-
tions between his brain hemispheres to
prevent his seizures. Before they decided
Rick was spending time talking to the girl
and he began to seizure. He lay twitching
on the ground she sat beside him and gen-
tly though firmly told him, "Remember to
breathe, Rick."
I think that's just cool enough. When
times are hard and things occupy you to
all extents.
Remember to breathe.
dll:
Applications are still available in the
Engineering Society office for
Orientation Week 1997
RON
Immodest structure
Proposal of vision or execution of dimbulbery
In 1936, during the S]X11tisJl Civil War, General Moin led four oo]umns oj troops on Madrid. He
declared that fre hnd n fifth oohmm in ide the city nuule up oj rebels wilo ilis supporters. TItUS
the expression fifth oo/zmn1 entered the English Imtgunge; it refers to rebels or dissenters that resist
tfre establislmrent. The word ooiumll (//so denotes a means oj support sudt as a pillar. There fore a
fifth oolumn am be a wice dissent mamt to uphold tfre goal oj the ereryone. As organizations are
more often nm badly than well those 10110 speakOllt may better know the principles oJtlteorgnniza-
tUm. Certainly, this is not something 1 claim but sol/lething to wflich I aspire.
We are now seeing a proposed "restruc-
turing" of the Engineering Society direc-
torships. This is somewhat laudable as a
our organization needs a change for the
better. There are however probJems we
must consider before we are to quick to
commend.
This is not really a restructuring but the
establishment of a structure as there has
really been no app reciable structure for
more than the past five years. Over this
time many people have talked about dif-
ferent structures and implementations;
this is far from a new idea.
On November 5 in the fall term there
was a meeting to gather input and ideas
about how and in what form a new struc-
ture should be implemented. Many ideas
and concerns were expressed wh ich
showed the desire to put this in place for
the summer term was far too hasty.
November 10 wa a joint exc meeting.
Before this meeting I was able to speak
with two m mbers of ex to share my
thoughts and concerns about th proper
application of a new structure. 1 pointed
out that this would best be done after time
for development and in an exc 's S<.'COnd
tenn. So, I expected that input would be
sought over the winter tenn and Septem-
ber '97 would see a new structure. This
only happened in part. It seems as though
the change will occur for September but
with little contribution from our greatest
resource, our people.
So now with four weeks left in the
semester we are told to view a proposal
that few people have ever seen before.
This should have been brought up earlier
to allow people to contribute varied expe-
rience and points-of-view to develop a
more effective proposal. Ignoring the voic-
es of the society seems to show a mindless
arrogance.
1his proposal aggravates many of the
problems that it tries to address. Declining
interest in contributing to the Engineering
Society is primarily due to the lack of
respect for members. Thus resistance to
this proposal will be caused by the lack of
respect of the concerns of those who do
contribute to the society.
Reluctance to invest in the competence
of the people has forced any somewhat
taller informal structure to be flattened.
Unwillingn .. to bdicv(\ in th bility of
IX\opl<' to add anything to the d v 'Iop-
m 'nt of Ih 'ring Sc idy is a grave
mistak('.
What should we do now? It's u..';I.'!CSS to
try to chang thr past, we should only try
to beller the {uluTl'. Support the good
points of this proposal and suggest
improvements. Som 'thing like this needs
to happen, it's just that this is not th best
way.
What we all need is l"I.'SJ'Cd. It costs little
but it is worth a lot
The Answers to Alex's quiz on page 16
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3 r oot<!Ua 2JLS! afJJ nb tLOW JfJ6 pouow 0\ JfJ6 Er 2fS!lCS26
S bOE18 bSJ!o
llJe r 02J suq I::0nuq 16qae PA JIJ6 conqJ62 ou nJ6 t!L2J !l00L Ot Er
P \t.V\ i po e ~ +'0" y ~
~
ENGeography
How well do you know E*?
AlexMatan
Spike Suppression -18 Etee
Every day you go through the hallowed hallways of
engineering. But are you really seeing, or just looking?
Try and identify these photos and you'll find out.
Scoring:
Photo # 1 is worth 10 points.
Photo # 2 is worth 5 points.
Photo # 3 is worth 15 points.
Photo # 4 is worth 20 points.
Answers are on page 15 .
Photo#2 (down)
Photo # 3 (left)
What kind of engineer are you?
o points - Sub-Froili on campus tour
5 points - Frosh-week frosh
10 points - Frosh
15 points -Observant Frosh
20 points - Frosh who got lost in CPH, or 18 Frosh
going on work tenn
25 points - Frosh who tried to get to POETS but got
la;t in CPH, or Frosh who spends too much time in class
in EL, and not enough time at POETS
30 points - Pretty smart Dumb Frosh
35 points - Repeating IB rem", not really Froili, but
damned cla;e
40 points - Promoted oonditionally to 2A, must clear
failures
45 points - Third-year know-it-all
50 points - What's that on your pinky finger?
Photo # 4 (above)
Photo # 1 (below)
Goes Directly to
Engineering Students
Over 600 students will graduate from Waterloo Engineering
this year. Make sure You are one of them who improves
the education of all the rest.
F
Class of 1997
Plummer's Pledge
You Can Make A Difference!
Any questions please contact
the WEEF office CPH 1323C x4893
RON RRIOR
Here's a sports
update!
Kelly Butt
2A Enviro Chem
Athletic Director
H
llo all you engineers. Here's a
brief update in the land of
ports.
The Western volleyball tournament,
that was quite a while ago, was lots of fun
and had l<;>ts of volleyball. We were only
able to get one team instead of two to play
in the tournament which is what I had
hoped for. That's okay because we may
have been small but boy did we ever kick
some butt!! Our team won ALL of their
games going into the semi-finals and then
disaster struck!! In the semis we lost both
of our games. Oh well, at least we had
fun. I would bke to thank everyone that
came out.
An indoor soccer tournament was
played on the weekend of Feb. 22 and it
went off great too! Thanks should go to
Mike Worry for organizing it and running
the whole thing.
Our professional staff can help you
with a/l types of printing from
business cards to four colour work.
Give us a call :
PRINTING - ext. 5176
DESIGN ext. 2079
PHOTO IMAGING - ext. 6807
Graphics Express*
South Campus Hall
SCH 126, ext. 5740; Fax (519) 7462698
Monday to Friday: 8:00 am - 8:00 pm
Saturday: 12:00 - 4:00 pm
Dana Porter Library
LIB 218, ext. 2956; Fax (519) 1463590
Monday to Friday: 8:00 am - 5:00 pm
Call for evening/weekend hours
Eng hockey has started and will be start-
ing semis and finals on the weekend of
March 15. The games will be starting
ONE HOUR LATER than last weekends
games. That means games don't start until
7pm. Captains, make sure that your
teams know this!
Things to come:
White Water Rafting. Spend July 11 - 13
on the white waters of the Ottawa River.
The trip was a success last year and it is
lots of fun. The weekend includes a full
day of rafting, all your meals, camping
and a Saturday Night Party!! If you are
interested please talk to Keith Parker:
phone # 884-2752 or email him at bkpark-
er@novice.uwaterloo.ca. A $60 dollar
(refundable) deposit is required.
Basketball Tourney. Athletics is hoping
to have a basketball tourney the weekend
of March 22, if we can get the gym time.
Please keep an eye out for signs with fur-
ther information. If interested you can
contact Diana Wang at dcywang@novice
That's All For Now!!
Engineering*
E2 2353. elCt. 2334; Fax (519) 888-6191
Monday to Friday: 8:15 am - 4:30 pm
Davis Centre library*
DC 1501, ext. 3878; Fax (519) 146-3153
Monday to Friday: 7:45 am - 9:45 pm
Saturday: 12:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Sunday closed
Math Centre*
Me 5182, ext 2335; fax (519) ~
Monday to Friday. 7:30 am - 4:30 pm.
Hail to the
Shadowees
Mike Hermann
Co-Shadow Day Director
2A Systems - The Far SyDe
5r
dOW days have finally come and
one. The directors can catch up
on sleep and school, the orifice
phones have stopped ringing with reg-
istrations and the volunteers can be
thanked, the last being the most impor-
tant. At the final count we had over 180
volunteers for the two days. Many vol-
unteers also had multiple shadows, con-
ducted departmental seminars and
helped guide groups around to the pre-
sentations in the afternoons. All the vol-
unteers did an excellent job, and an
enthusiastic thank you goes out to each
and everyone of you. The directors
appreciate your help and the shadows
did too.
The shadow program ran for two days
(March 4th and 5th) and well over 200 stu-
dents visited the campus and got to learn
about our fine faculty. The days were not
flawless (nothing ever is I suppose), but
overaIIthey went very well. The response
Monday to lhulrsdav:. .... .. G'il'.;- ~ I M N
Friday: 7:30
Saturday:
Call for SV8Jr'llnD.tweskIll1ll
from the shadows was nothing but posi-
tive so the bottom line really is a success.
Students came to UW from large cities like
Toronto and small towns like Grirnsby,
but no matter where they came from they
were all keen to learn about Engineering.
The questions were endless, but all the vol-
unteers were happy to answer them. The
future of UW Engineering is as bright as
ever.
Another note of thanks goes out to Pro-
fessor Ed Jernigan, the Admissions Direc-
tor, and John Westlake from the Co-Op
Department for giving fine presentations
on their respective areas. This was impor-
tant information for the shadows, and it
was well-received. Thank you as well to
the people from the Mini-Baja Team, Mid-
night Sun, and OEC for making presenta-
tions as well.
I highly recommend this directorship to
anybody interested in doing it next fall,
and 1'd be happy to answer any questions
for anyone interested in running it It's a
lot of work, but it's also a lot of fun, with
some very tangible results. It's quite an
experience.

-o-e -e- w-s
Proposed Engineering
Society structure
INTRODUCTION
Currently the structure of the Engi-
neering Society is very flat. Figure 1
shows the current structure of the Engi-
neering Society. Each director performs
one specific task, giving them little room
to experience different aspects of the
society. 'I1tis structure does not con-
tribute very well to developing leader-
ship skills in the members of the society.
In recent years, interest in contributing
to the Engineering Society has declined,
a trend that can be attributed to the
changing type of student admitted to
Engineering at the University of Water-
loo. The Engineering Society would like
to continue to benefit from student
involvement and continue to benefit stu-
dents by helping cultivate both their
leadership and integrated team skills.
I
I
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Vice-President I
External
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Figure 1 - Current Engineerillg Society Stnll:tllre
To improve leadership and manage-
ment skills, major companies have gone
to a team-oriented organizational struc-
ture, with each team working on several
tasks simultaneously. Each of th.ese
teams has a team leader who is responsi-
ble to his/her supervisor for the func-
tionality of the team. This is the struc-
ture which we wish to incorporate into
the Engineering Society. This will add a
new layer to the structure, and give stu-
dents more opportunity to gain useful
skills through their involvement with
the Engineering Society.
In the Engineering Society, these
teams will be referred to as workgroups,
and there will be a total of seven such
workgroups. The Waterloo Engineering
Endowment Foundation is a separate
entity and will be discussed later. Each
of these workgroups will be described in
detail to follow, but first we will cover
the role of the workgroup co-ordinator.
WORKGROUP CO-ORDINATOR
The position of workgroup co-ordina-
tor is a position for students who l:tave
contributed to the Engineering Society in
the past and who have developed the
skills necessary to assume the role of
workgroup co-ordinator. Candidates
will have normally been a member of
one or more workgroups in at least two
previous terms before applying to be
workgroup co-ordinator.
The workgroup co-ordinator will be
President
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be responsible for, with the assistance of
the Vice-President Finance, preparing a
budget for the workgroup based on the
responsibilities and duties of the work-
group. TI1e budget must be approved
by the Vice-President Finance before
any funds will be allotted.
The workgroup co-ordinator will also
be expected to attend the workgroup c0-
ordinator meetings. These meetings will
be attended by all executive officers and
workgroup co-ordinators. This meeting
is to be held at least three times per term.
The purpose of this meeting is to pro-
vide communication on a lateral level
between workgroup co-ordinators. This
meeting will also serve as the opportuni-
ty to discuss issues which affect more
than one workgroup. This meeting
could also be a forum for suggestions on
workgroup leadership and
direction.
Workgroup co-ordinators
will also be responsible for
Vice- President I
Inten1al
r vice-Presidentl
I Finance
holding organizational meet-
ings with the members of
his/her workgroup periodi-
cally to ensure that the work-
group is functioning as it
should. These meetings are
designed to reinforce the
workgroup conl'Cpl anu ht'lp
evenly dis tribut ' the work
am ngst th Su h
a meeting coulJ also be a
I T
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Directorships
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Class Reps
directly responsible for the actions and
activities of his/her workgroup. The
workgroup co-ordinator will also report
to their leading executive officer as to the
status of the workgroup. The work-
group co-ordinator will also have the
power to make decisions which are
internal to the workgroup and do not
affect the internal or external image of
the Engineering Society. Any decisions
which affect the image of the society or
other workgroups are to be discussed
with the appropriate executive officer,
and if necessary brought to the work-
group co-ordinator meetings.
The workgroup co-ordinator will also
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forum for discussion of i ' tiL'S
relating to the workgroup.
WORKGROUPS
The following is a list of alJ the work-
groups and their purpose. The work-
group is not limited to the activities list-
ed below, provided that extraneOlIS
activities are still within the general
domain of the workgroup. Such a deci -
sion belongs to the executive officers,
and the workgroup co-ordinator is
expected to bring new ideas to his/her
leading executive officer.
Academic Workgroup
The academic workgroup is responsi-
ble for providing a service to students
with respect to acadcmi . The work-
group co-ordinator reports directly to
the President. Thi workgroup is
responsible for the following:
1) compiling and updating the collec-
tion of old exams and solutions
2) conducting the Course Critiques as
outlined in the Engineering Society
policy manual
3) updating the Resource Manual as
necessary
4) sending a representative to academ-
ic related meetings as necessary
TI1e goal of this workgroup is to pro-
vide services to students looking for
assistance in an academic manner.
Campus-Wide Workgroup
The campus-wide workgroup i.s
responsible for the interaction between
the Engineering Society and other stu-
dent organizations on campus. The
workgroup co-ordinator reports directly
to the Vice-President External. This
workgroup is responsible for the follow-
ing:
1) co-ordinating activities, both social
and acaderruc, with other faculties
on campus
2) representing the Engineering Soci-
ety on Studenls Advising Co-op
3) rt'rn'S(.'nting Ihe Fngin( ring SocJ-
,ty on lh' tOtIlKd of tIll' L'l'dl'mtion
of Sludent!ol
4) f 'pn'S('nling the Engin 'ring S< j-
ely lo th ' Simford. Hl'ming Found.l-
lion
5) repI U1(' Enginlwing Sod
ely on lll(' C,mpus Recrea tion.
Advisory oUllci!
6) organizing the J4 Nol Forgotten
ceremony
The goals of this workgroup nrc to
continually improve relalions bctwL'C11
the Engineering Soci >ly and olhel' stu-
dent organizationll on campus and to
improve the image of the Engineering
Society in the eyes of oth r student orga-
ni7.ations on campus.
External Relations Workgroup
The external relations workgroup is
responsible for the interaction between
-.
the Engineering Society and both other
universities and the general public. The
workgroup co-ordinator reports directly
to the Vice-President External. This
workgroup is responsible for the follow-
ing:
1) co-ordinating the High School
Shadow program
2) co-orctinating the Frontrunners prer
gram
3) co-ordinating the Explorations prcr
gram
4) representing the Engineering Soci-
ety on the Canada Day Steering
Committee and assisting in the
organization of the Canada Day
Celebrations
5) representing the Engineering Soci-
ety on the Engineering Student
Societies Council of Ontario
6) organizing events for National
Engineering Week
7) organizing charity events including
the Bus Push
The goals of this workgroup are to
continually improve relations between
the Engineering Society and other uni-
versities and the general public and to
improve the image of the Engineering
Society in the eyes of other universities
and the general public.
Social Activities Workgroup
The social activities workgroup is
responsible for social activities within
the Engineering Society. The work-
group coordinator reports directly to the
Vice-President Internal. This work-
group is responsible for the following:
1) organizing the Semi-Formal
2) organizing artistic activities and
events, including Tal-Eng
3) updating the Arts Board in CPH
hallway
4) organizing athletic activities and
events
5) organizing various other events
which promote Engineering Spirit
6) organizing EngWcek
7 organizing Enginuity
The goal of this workgroup is to prcr
mote Engineering Spirit wi thin the Engi-
neering Society by organizing activities
which provide a forum in which Engi-
neering students can interact on a social
level.
Internal Media Workgroup
The internal med ia workgroup is
responsible for promoting Engineering
Society activities and events through
several media. The workgroup coordi
nator reports clirectly to the Vice-Presi-

oe Ne ws
dent Internal. This workgroup is
responsible for the following:
1) producing the Enginewsletter
2) organizing, compiling and promot-
ing the PauJ and Paula Plummer
Points for Participation (P*"5)
3) producing the following term's
Blotter for the off-stream society
4) taping, editing, and producing
videos of Engineering Society
events and activities
5) programming and updating the
pixelboard outside the C&D
6) producing craft paper posters for
Engineering Society events and
activities
7) updating and maintaining the Engi-
neering Society web page
8) maintaining the cleanliness and
stock level of the Darkroom
The goal of this workgroup is to prer
mote Engineering Society activities and
events to as many of its members as p0s-
sible.
Student Affairs Workgroup
The student affairs workgroup is
responsible for ensuring that all classes
and student groups are aware of the
activities of the Engineering Society. The
workgroup coordinator reports directly
to the Vice-President Internal. This
workgroup is responsible for the follow-
ing:
1) assisting Engineering Society Class
Reps in their duties
2) introducing first year students to
the Engineering Society and its role
3) organizing activities welcoming
exchange students to the University
ofWat rloo
4) assist in the promotion of various
cial records of the society
The goal of the business affairs work-
group is to maintain the business and
financial aspects of the Engineering Soci-
ety.
EXCEPTIONS
The following is a list of other organi-
zations which do not follow the work-
group structure of the Engineering Soci-
ety.
C&D Operations Committee
The C&D Operations Committee is
governed by the C&D policy. The Chair
of the C&D Operations Committee
reports directly to the President of the
Engineering Society. For more details
refer to the C&D Operations Committee
Policy.
The Iron Warrior
The Iron Warrior is governed by the
Iron Warrior Editorial Board, as ou t1ined
in the Iron Warrior Policy. The Editor-
In-Chief is responsible for the produc-

Society, and reports to the President.
The Iron Warrior staff are guided by the
experience of the Editor-In-Chief in the
production of the paper. For more
detail, refer to the Iron Warrior Policy.
Off-Tenn Representative
The role of the off-term representative
is to represent the off-stream society at
the council meetings of the on-stream
society. The off-term representative is
appointed by and reports directly to the
President of the society which he/she
represents.
student groups of possible interest P.O.E.T.S. Managers
to the members of the society Due to the nature of P.o.E.T.S., it is
Business Affairs Workgroup
The business affairs workgroup is
not conducive to incorporate the man-
agement of P.O.E.T.s. into the work-
group concept. As such, there will be 3
P.O.E.T.s. managers each term, who are
to equally divide the responsibilities of
managing P.O.E.T.S. The P.O.E.T.S.
managers are appointed by and report
directly to the President. P.O.E.T.s.
managers are, however, permitted to be
a member of a workgroup in addition to
his/her responsibilities as P.O.E.T.S.
manager.
Speaker
By the constitution of the Engineering
Society, there is to be a speaker every
term. As such, the position of speaker
will not be integrated into a workgroup,
and remains separate. The speaker is
appointed by the President of the Engi-
neering Society, and the duties of the
speaker are outlined in the constitution.
The speaker is, however, permitted to be
a member of a workgroup in addition to
his/her responsibilities as speaker.
WEEF
The Waterloo Engineering Endow-
ment Foundation, WEEF, is not gov-
erned by the Engineering Society.
WEEF reports to the WEEF Board of
Directors, rather than to a Vice-President
or the President of the Engineering Soci-
ety. The rules which WEEF must follow
are stated in the constitution of WEEF.
WEEF will, however, also use the
process of establishing workgroups
used for the rest of the Engineering Soci-
ety.
With the implementation of the vari-
ous workgroups mentioned above, the
organizational structure of the Engineer-
ing Society would change, as shown in
Figure 2. The organizational structure of
the C&D Operations Committee, Iron
Warrior, Off-Term Representative,
P.O.E.T.S. Managers, Speaker, and
WEEP would remain unchanged.
responsible for the business affairs ,-------------------------------,
of the Engineering Society. The
workgroup coordinator reports
directly to the Vice-President
Finance. This workgroup is
responsible for:
1) purchasing Engineering Soci-
ety novelties to be sold in the
Orifice
2) staffing the Orifice when full-
time staff on breaks, vacation
or is ill
Academic

Coordinate
3) one member of this work- Academic
group is to be dedicated to
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Vice-President \
Extanal
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Campus- External
Wide Relati<ns

Coordinate Coordinato
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Campus- External
Wide Relati<ns

President
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Vice-President I
Intemal
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Vice-President \
Finance
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Intemal Social. Student Business
Media Affairs Affairs
Workgrou. WorkgrouJ;
Coordinato Coordinato Coordinato Coordinato
1 I I I
Internal Social. Student Business
Media Affairs Affairs
Workgrou!;
assisting the Vice-President '--___________________________ ---..1
Finance in updating the finan- Figllrt 2 . ProJxmI Ellgineering Scciety Structure
Doran S%man
President
E
's hard to believe that there's only
three weeks of class left. nus term
as flown by for many of us, and
there's still so much to do. There's a
lot of stuff going on, so I'll try to be
brief and summarize it all.
Last Saturday was the Grad Ball. The
ballroom was decorated beautifully, the
dinner was fantastic, and the party after-
wards was lots of fun. The Paul and
a Plummer Awards were handed
out by Sarah Davies (A-Soc Prez and
myself. The winners for A-Soc were
Jason Van Dyk, Chris Sharpe, and
Graeme Skirmer. The winners for B-Soc
were Brian Vidler, Mike Worry, Ed
Fletcher, and Bill Gray. Congratulations
to all the winners and nominees for their
achievements and thanks for all your
contribution to the Engineering Society
in the past five years. You will all be
missed.
Before we all get out of here, however,
we need to finish this term. For your
convenience (and pleasure if you want)
the Orifice will remain open this term
until Friday, April 18. Now you don't
have to wrestle with people for the pho-
tocopiers in the last week of class so that
you can get some old exams. The Ori-
fice will be fully functional right up to

-o-c -e- w-s
the 1 tho
After the
1 t h ,
things are
going to
change.
Starting in
the end of
April and
."""'''''- __ , g 0 i n g
____ t h r 0 ugh
most of
==:::""-""'"------J May there
are going
to be some
changes to the Orifice. Our trusty home
is going to be renovated to provide more
of a professional image. Short term
plans include moving and repainting
the walls, repairing portions of the car-
pet, and rearranging the fumi ture to be
more space-efective. Long term plans
include replacing the furniture and
adding other amenities to improve the
efficiency and usefulness of the Orifice.
If you want to take a look at the new lay-
out, come by the Orifice and ask Betty
to look at the plans.
While we're moving stuff around,
we're moving the Video Editing Room.
In an effort to improve our space usage,
the equipment currently in the Video
Editing Room will be moved into the
back room of P.O.E.T.s. The Video Edit-
ing Room will now be used for tempo-
rary storage. This will improve the spa-
tial efficiency of the back room of
P.o.ET.s., while giving us some storage
space so that less junk ends up being
stored in the IW office.
The fax service available in the Orifice
has been met with sucl1 popularity that
we are now announcing an incoming
fax service. Incoming faxes can be
accepted and will cost only 10 cents per
page received. If you want to receive a
fax in the Orifice, the fax number is 519-
725-4872. If you get someone to fax you
something, just drop by the Orifice and
pid- it up (don' t forget to pay!). Fa\.es
not pi ked up within a we k will be
tllrOwn out. Don't forg t that we still
offer the outgoing fa>- service at incredi-
bl low rates. Local faxes cost 50 cents
for the first page, 10 cents for eacl1 addi-
tional page, and long di tance faxe
(anywhere in the world!) cost $1.50 for
the first page, 50 cents for each addition-
al page. Th are w1believable pri J
so come by and fax with us!
Since the term i coming to a close, we
need to take a look at who's going to do
what next term. Th re have been ideas
thrown around for the past f w y ars
about restructuring the Engineering
Society to improve the effectiveness of
the Society and to help teach people
who get involved more skills. In the Fall
term, we are going to try out a new way
of structuring EngSoc. Instead of having
directorships where each director is
committed to one specific task, we are
going to implement the workgroup con-
cept in EngSoc. Basically, there will be
seven workgroups, each workgroup
rat different aspects of the Engineering
. ty in one tem1, instead of focusing
on just one ta k. We're going to try this
in the Fnll tclm and A is going to by
jt in Winter '9 .
The whole structure vvilllikely under-
go SEveral changes in the n t couple of
years, as we try to figure out e actly
how thi, idea works best for EngSoc.
This kind of structure is m tly advanta-
geous to all of us in e it gives us an
introduction to the type of atmosphere
that we will cncow\ter in the work force.
Man companies are going on to a
"team oriented" managem nt style, and
we feel that EngSoc should join the trend
in order to better prepare all of us for the
work force. If you're interested in find-
ing out more about the new structure
and/ or want to get involved, drop by
the Orifice and pick up an information
package about it. If you have any ques-
tions or comments, please feel free to dis-
cuss tl1em with me or any of tl1e exec
either in person or by e-mail. We're
going to play this by ear for a while until
res'"
having a workgroup coordinator. The
workgroup coordinator will act as a liai-
son between the members of the work-
group and the executive officers. The
workgroup coordinator will also be the
"team leader" and help organize and c0-
ordinate the activities of th workgroup.
The m mbc of the workgroup will be
responsibl for handling various tasks
and rcspon ibilities that fall under the
domain of that workgroup. This way
work can be dynamically distributt.>d so
that people who want to do more can do
more and people who want to do less
can do less. This plan also allows work-
group m mbers to gain exposure to sev-
we figure out the best way of doing it.
By the way, applications for being a
member of a workgroup are due back
by Friday, March 21. The workgroups
will be announced at the EngSoc
potluck, which will be in P.o.E.T.S. at
4:30 on Wednesday, Mar('h 26, just
l for\;' oundl VI.
nlat's .1bollt .lit for now. If yuu h,)V('
any clbollt <my of this sluH,
plcc1Sl' don't hcsitM ' 10 either slop me in
the halls, or ' nl.lil ml' ,11
'ng prl'z@noviC'e.uwalerillo-.C<l. Until
ncxllime, may lh ) force lx- with you.
[)Oroll
.......

oe e ws
VISin te rna 1 times, we would get two
comments which complete-
P
ew
ly contradicted each other! As
promised, I have published below all of
Kim Whitear
VP-Internal
G
reetings all! I want to begin
this spew by thanking all of the
volunteers who helped out with
Shadow Days and Explorations this past
week! Shadow Day was more success-
ful than any of us (including the dinc'C-
tors!) predicted and we had over 200
high school students shadowing Water-
loo Engineers over the two days! I can-
not thank the Shadow day directors
enough for all their hard work. Monica
Milanowski and Mike Hermann
worked together to promote Engineer-
ing at Waterloo at it's best.. ..... we can
only hope that Shadow Days in the
future continue to be this successful!
Explorations on Saturday also
proved to be an overwhelming success!
Over 1500 junior-middle school students
and their parents enjoyed an afternoon
at Waterloo checking out displays and
demo's from all tlle engineering disci-
plines. An extended congratulations
goes out to Lynn Zupancic and Alex
Matan (Explorations Directors) for
putting together a spectacular event
with Brenda Law (Dean's Office) and
Carl Thompson (Faculty Liaison). The
four of them managed to run three sets
of tours and a number of other activities
like clockwork! Thanks also to all of the
tout guides, help rs and Chris Foster,
Cara Gray, Ed Fletcher and Jason Kim-
ball for pulling together four great Engi-
nuity events at last minute! (I1lerc was
almost a great story to tell involving a
bucket full of water and me walking
backwards .... )
YOUR COMMENTS ..................... ..
Now, for the moment you've all been
waiting for.. .... well, some of you've been
waiting for ..... ..
Suggestion Box feedback and Exec.
responses!!!!! (clap here)
Over the last month, suggestions
placed in the box outside the Orifice
have been collected and discussed at the
following Exec. meeting and joint exec.
Myself, Doron, Jason and Fabes would
read each suggestions/comment, and
discuss how it could be integrated into
the Engineering Society. I must admit,
this task alone was a lot harder than I
initially thought it would be. Some
t .... -- : --
the comments (uncensored) and the
response of the exec. to each suggestion.
We are very much open to anyone else's
input on the suggestions and would like
to know how you feel about them. Here
it goes ... .
1. '1t doesn't seem like you are getting
many suggestions. In attempting to get
feedback and recommendations it is
vital that people believe that their opin-
ions are valued and that what they say
can make a difference. In order to show
society members the value and results of
their feedback, you should solicit sug-
gestions from individuals on specific
topics of concern and act on these sug-
gestions. This will get what you seem to
want and begin to establish a norm of
promoting the responsibility and acces-
sibility of the Engineering Society. You
cannot expect people to come to you."
Response:
This suggestion makes a very valid
point. People need to feel that their
opinions are valued, otherwise they
won't bother voicing them. Personally, I
(Kim) try to make a point of asking pe0-
ple how they enjoyed events or asking
people I know who are not involved
much with Eng-Soc what would make it
better for them. The major flaw in this
method is that there is no way I can
speak to every single engineering stu-
dent.
A few things coming up near the end
of this term will be spccificall y targeted
to r ceiving feedback. A survey has
been drafted to hand out through the
class reps on the evaluation of the Engi-
neering Society. Hopefully, most people
will take a few minutes to fill one out.
Also, there will be feedback sessions at
both the end of term directorship meet-
ing and class rep meeting (please let
your class reps know if you have some-
thing you would like them to table at the
meeting). vVhiJe the above suggestion is
a really good one, it is also a very hard
thing to do effectively. Please let us
know of any other ways you can think
of to solicit suggestions from students,
we would really appreciate all of your
ideas!
2. "Could we please get some
boardgames for POETS like Trivial Pur-
suit and scrabble? We need something
constructive to do with our time." (not
exactly verbatim .... J'm writing this one
from memory.).
Response:
Great idea! I will relay this message to
the POETS managers and see if they can
purchase some "previously owned"
games from Value Village or something!
3. "Engineering Society meetings
require great improvement. It is difficult
because there are opposing forces
involved between formal and informal,
social and businesslike, long and short
(generally no one wants long meetings
but they tend to go long). The solution is
a difficult but reachable goal. Meetings
can run efficiently with everyone enjoy-
ing it and with effective achievements.
The bastardized parliamentary proce-
dure needs to be looked at and under-
stood by everyone. Needless discussion
must be squashed. Some things do not
need to be discussed at counciL"
Response:
It is very true that there are opposing
views on how a meeting should be con-
ducted. Taking that into consideration,
it is not an easy task to create a meeting
atmosphere which will please everyone.
We have heard a few comments about
the informal nature of meetings, many
people feel they should be more formal
and structured (as seen below). Then
again, we have heard an equal number
of comments regarding the fact that
meetings are too formal and boring.
Council meetings tend to be long
because of the important nature of the
issues. Council members need clarifica-
tion of specific discussion points and
want to make sure they know all of the
details before voting. It is also true that
three hours of meetings can be very try-
ing on people's patience; it is important
to allow for "less formal" parts of the
meeting, such as class rep feedback, to
break up the large blocks of heavy dis-
cussion.
While this comment outlines a valid
problem in the Engineering Society, it
does not offer any possible resolutions to
the proposed problem. We are currently
looking into solutions, and it would be
beneficial to hear some suggestions on
exactly how we can improve the meet-
ings so that they are more efficient and
effective.
As for squashing needless discussion,
it is hard to define what is needless.
What may seem needless to one person
may not be to another. Perhaps we need
to limit discussion to a specified time
limit more often in order to be maximize
productivity during meetings.
4. "Slight lack of professionalism by a
large number of attendees (including a
couple of members of the exec.). If there
are several hot topics to discuss, they
should be patient and bear with it.
There seems to be more emphasis on the
meeting ending than the actual content
of the meeting. If people aren't willing to
sit through the entire meeting no matter
how long it goes, then they should find
someone else to attend fro them. Topics
on the Engenda are usually quite good
and pertinent so people have no reason
to say they are disinterested based on
the lack of important issues.
Response:
(Grouped with response to comment
#3)
5. "Many people are arrogant from
being in engineering. TIle Engineering
Society typifies this as it becomes an
institutional norm. This needless ego-
tism should be discouraged by: organiz-
ing interfaculty activities, having organi-
zationalleaders act with the necessary
degree of humility, stopping this tumor-
ous part of our culture from being
passed to the frosh. Until something is
done I want nothing to do with the Engi-
neering Society. I don't want to be ass0-
ciated with such ignorance."
Response:
The Engineering Society has a number
of mandates including the representa-
tion of all engineering students at Water-
loo. It also serves as a resource center for
students and provides a variety of ser-
vices, among other things. The Engi-
neering Society will continue to organize
campus-wide events such as Canada
Day celebrations, Wonderland trips, 14
ot Forgotten Assemblies ... etc, but it is
not the responsibility of the Engineering
Society to change the nature of people's
personalities.
If you have any input on the com-
ments or responses above or have any
new comments/suggestions, please feel
free to drop them in the suggestion box.
Thank you to everyone who has con-
tributed so far, we greatly value your
input!
Kim

oc e ws
VPF
-
Milanowski for taking the initiative
In a nee to finally a to all
of the schools still owmg money to
end. I hope that everyone igned up in
the orifice. Furthermore, I have had this
desire of going k-ydiving and if any par-
ti are interested in going just before
exam, plea e email me at
jjjworry@novice.uwaterloo.ca. I have
some information about a place and
would like all interested parties to get
together. Just think of it this way, if aU
things fail and your parachute doesn't
open, we'll have a great excuse for n t
writing finals!!
Jason Worry
VP-Finance
E
dream of a world that exists with-
out any midterms or finals. How-
ver, since a majority of the people
reading this issue of the Iron Warrior
are students, you, the reader, probably
know that as a student, you will
always have midterms and
finals ... yucky!!
Since midterms and finals are now
over and the exec pull together all of the
loose ends that were let go a little during
midterms, the finances are looking in
pretty good shape. Thanks to Monica
CCES'%. In addition, Monica ron-
fumes to have student cheques out
every week. While on the issue of
the once-a-week cheque issuing, if
for some reason student cheques are
not completed in the future (and we're
talking in the future not tomorrow),
don't worry the cheques will be issued
as promptly as the people who are issu-
ing them can do so. This arises due to
the fact that the people and this term this
relates to Monica, are humans and can
only work so many hours on finances
while being a student first. So please be
considerate of everyone's time. This
enough romplaining now ...
By now, people have experienced a
race of some kind that 2A systems has
put together. Hope that everyone
enjoyed it. In addition, mountain climb-
ing should be roming up on this week-
Keith Parker
Weer Director
Loren Watson is officially gone!!
(music of ding, dong the witch is dead,
the wkked witch ... play in the back-
ground) For some past exec who are
rejoicing now, this is the end of a long
struggle against Scrooge (figure it out)
and the start of a new era as the Engi-
neering Society will start to reap the
rewards of collecting their own adver-
tisement money. Engineering Society
equity values will sky-rocket, and the
only people that can benefit from all
17th at 6:00 in DC1302. The funding
decision meeting is set for Thursda
March 20 at 5:30 in DC2577. We have to
E
's a busy time over here in WEEF decide how to distribute the $50,000
land right now as we are in the among the requested $160,(XX) worth of
. ddle of the regular funding deci- projects.
these entrepreneurial motions are you,
th member of th Engineering Society.
Keep close watch of this rolumn to hear
of new up-to-date ideas and news of
how the Corporate Manager is working
out.
Check out the CPH Foyer next term
when you get back on stream. Hopeful-
ly, it will look new and improved with
joint additions from the Dean, The C&D
and the Engineering Society.
That's all me wrote!!
Jay
sion and the $100,000 proposal stuff. On the $100,000 front, I'm taking a Silicon Graphics Machines; a couple of
There were so many proposals this really nice trip to Europe. Thanks Teaching Labs like tlle new mechanical
term that we had to split the presenta- Everyone!! teaching lab; departmental Watstar
tions up into two different nights. One Actually, we're accepting preliminary upgrades, and a major upgrade to the
was yesterday (Thursday March 13th) proposals as we speak. Ideas bouncing Graphics Lab. What will it be? Your
and the other one is on Monday March around seem to all involve computers: guess is as good. as mine. You should be

John Faber
VP-External
T:
ley got their rings, they
. bounced them off my head.
Ouch! No wonder I have a
headache. So all of those fourth year
type people are walking aroun.d with
rings; clinking them on bottles and
walls and people's heads. It's amaz-
ing how hollow one's head sounds
when an Iron Ring bounces N"".
..
Well, what a bust. Got to hate it
when everything you hy to do goes to
the dogs. Thank God for great shadow
and exploration directors. Thanks guys
for the great job. The Mall visit didn't
happen. T should have known that T
would have to book the maU six months
ago. I was trying to set up a display in
Fairvjew Mall but they were all booked
up until July. Unfortunately, Habitat for
Humanity isn't doing anything for a
month or two so the charity event never
happroed. You see I've had a really bad
week. But enough excuses. For the rest
of the term I'll be on top of this stuff.
So what's next? I need applications
for FSSCO AGM. It's being held in June
of this year at Western. It should be a
good. time. 111 be there but I need three
more volunteers to go with me, FSSCO
AGM stands for Engineering Student
Society Councils o(
Ontario Annual rCncmi Me ting. J,l';Ol1
knows the actual date better than 1 do so
I'll gel it from him, but he isn't here lighl
now.
That's it for now. If you're wonder
ing, I've been a little swamp d with
work so that's why this is so short.
Hope you don't mind. If you have any
problems I'm always available to
answer any of your concerns. TI1C best
lime and place to find me is in roms at
almost any time. J Like it there.
Oh wait, Joint exec is this weekend.
Two days and I got a lot to do. Oh well,
see you soon.
Fobes
Jimin(lry proposals are due March 21.
H )l)RTll YF I'S!
J)on'( torgl'l .1["IIlUI PIUIl1IlK'r\ Pk'(igl'.
Hnd our pkdgl.' l.ml 111 II1\' ()rifiCl',
WI " I, Offill' (lI' '.,OIl1l' fourthl'.U' rooms,
You IMV<' until ApnJ ,1 In I ',Kh tilt' go,11
of $60JXXl ' ;i\'l'lIW (:iflth,1 i--l,('PS un
Civing!'
I would jllst likl' tll t,\)..I.' this opportu
nity to th.1nk <111 those lh,11 hav'
tlpproach OK' with tlll'l,. :-.uggl'SlillOS
and conum.'nl<i regarding WEI:!'. C; ,t
ling involvl.'d is wry importilllt; it is
your money being spent. I would like to
encourage l'vcryonc to Icx)k ilt the pro-
posals and talk to their WILF rt'PS about
what they consider important. Your
opinion counb:;!! If you have any sug-
gestions or comments about WEEF,
please Ictus know!!
Kf'ilh