The students, in teams of two to four participants, were invited a few weeks ago to build an AM radio using two required elements: a diode and a headphone. From recycled pizza boxes to bits of wood, the teams also had the freedom to use the materials of their choice to complete their prototypes with ingenuity and stand out against their fellow competitors.

The contest finals were held at Polytechnique on Saturday, February 25, in the presence of numerous professors from Polytechnique's Electrical Engineering Department. A tour of the research and teaching laboratories was also on the program. Four teams—one from Collège Bois-de-Boulogne, two from Cégep de La Pocatière and one from Cégep André-Laurendeau—made excellent impressions at the competition.

THE WINNERS

First place, tied ($2,000 prize)

Rodrigue Beaini, Thomas Beaudoin and Jabrane Mehdi from Collège Bois-de-Boulogne

Anouar Hanafi and Ando Rakotonandrasana from Cégep de La Pocatière 

   
Second place ($1,000 prize)

François Brault, Alex Guilbeault-Sauvé, Félix Langelier-Blanchet and
Mathieu Mantha from Cégep André-Laurendeau

Third place ($500 prize)

Jean-François Vachon and Pierre-Luc Verville from Cégep de La Pocatière

“This design competition aims to introduce students to the concrete challenges of electrical engineering,” said Jean-Jacques Laurin, professor in Polytechnique's Electrical Engineering Department and creator of the event. “The participants were responsible for design, analyzing constraints, managing a budget, choosing components, and constructing and evaluating a real device, just like a practising engineer. A number of teams carried off the challenge with great success.”

The winning team from Cégep Bois-de-Boulogne had similar things to say. “It was a good project in terms of showing us that perseverance is the key to success. Also, we noticed that you can't just rely on theory when building a radio. You also need to experiment a lot before you can really know how it works!” Ando Rakotonandrasana, from Cégep de La Pocatière, said the project helped him concretely see some aspects of electromagnetism and its applications. “It was a very enriching experience,” he concluded.  

The profession of electrical engineer encompasses a wide variety of careers. Polytechnique's bachelor's program in electrical engineering helps graduating students to specialize, with 15 concentrations and orientations including aerospace onboard systems, bioinstrumentation and space technologies.

Congratulations to all the teams that participated. The next round is in 2013!

Video: http://youtu.be/UJDL2m885DY