IEEE - Newfoundland and Labrador Section Newsletter www.ieee.nfld.net

Newsletter of the Newfoundland and Labrador IEEE Section, Volume 03, No. 1, May 2003

Upcoming Events

Annual Lobster Boil

Sat, June 14, 2003 (6:30 for 7:00 PM)Location: Fluvarium, St. John's

We would like to extend an invitation toall of our members to attend our favoritesocial event of the year, our annuallobster boil. You will have the choice ofsteak, vegetarian, or, of course, lobster.Each person will also receive one ticketfor wine, beer, or spirits. Door prizeswill be drawn throughout the night.Pricing for the event is as follows:

IEEE Member and Guest: $40 Non-member and Guest: $60 Single: $20 Member, $30 Non-Member

To purchase tickets to this fun-filledevent, please contact any of the Sectionexecutive members.

NECEC 2003

Wed, Nov 12, 2003Location: Holiday Inn, St. John’s

Announcing the 13th annualNewfoundland Electrical and ComputerEngineering Conference (NECEC2003). The Newfoundland and LabradorSection of IEEE holds NECEC in co-

operation with Memorial University ofNewfoundland.

The aim of NECEC 2003 is to provide aone-day forum where professionals inelectrical, electronic, computerengineering and informationtechnologies can present their work tothe growing technical community withinthe province.

The NECEC 2003 conference chair isDave Tilley from Aliant and thetechnical committee chair is Dr. Eric Gillfrom the Faculty of Engineering andApplied Science, MUN.

While our keynote speaker has yet to beconfirmed, Bill Kennedy has tentativelyagreed to be our luncheon speaker. Mr.Kennedy is the President-Elect of IEEECanada and is Principal Engineer withthe Alberta Electric System Operator(AESO). He has more than 30 years’experience in electric power systems forboth utility and industrial power systems.His early experiences consisted of workon the Nelson River HVDC transmissionsystem in Manitoba, 500 kVtransmission in Pakistan and 400 kVtransmission in Iran in the 1970s. From1979 to 1995, he worked for SaskPowerin increasingly responsible positions. Inaddition, he has been associated with theTransmission Administrator in Albertasince 1997 and has authored/coauthoredover a dozen papers.

Proceeds from this event and pastconferences are used to sponsor IEEE

scholarships and awards. The IEEESection extends a warm “thank you” toall of our sponsors, supporters,presenters, and attendees over the lastthirteen years who have made this eventa success.

Last year’s NECEC conference hadapproximately forty technical paperspresented in a broad range of areas. Inaddition, there were two distinguishedguest speakers: Bob Kelly of Voisey'sBay Nickel Company gave an overviewof this major development in themorning keynote address and theluncheon presentation on the topic ofethics will be given by Dr. Wally Read.

Also at lunch the IEEE Newfoundlandand Labrador Section introduced twonew awards: the "NECEC Wally ReadBest Student Paper Award" and the"NECEC Wally Read Best GOLD PaperAward", which were both presented byDr. Read. These awards are for thepapers judged to be best that are(primarily) authored by student orGOLD (Graduate of the Last Decade)members of the IEEE. Last year’srecipients were GOLD: Steven Taylor,Mark Simms, Dr. Siu O'Young and Dr.Neil Bose for their paper entitled"Distributed Embedded ModularArchitecture (DEMA) for AutonomousUnderwater Vehicle (AUV) ControlSystems" and Student: Christopher Whittand Dr. Cecilia Moloney for their entryentitled "Numerical Optimization forLoudspeaker and Microphone Arrays".

Highlights Upcoming25th Anniversary of Local SectionAwards

Annual Lobster BoilNECEC 2003 Conference

IEEE - Newfoundland and Labrador Section Newsletter www.ieee.nfld.net

2003 winners will be announced at thisyear’s conference.

Registered conferees will be providedwith lunch, refreshment breaks, andconference proceedings on compact disc.Registration information and otherconference details as well as informationon the IEEE Scholarship and NECECpaper awards can be viewed on-line athttp://www.ieee.nfld.net/NECEC03/.

IEMCSeptember 11-13, 2005Location: Fairmont Hotel, St. John’s

We are extremely pleased to announcethat our proposal has been approved tohost the 2005 International EngineeringManagement Conference (IEMC) in St.John’s. This large conference isaffiliated with the EngineeringManagement Society (EMS) of IEEE.We would encourage any members tobecome involved in this initiative. If youwould like to find out more about IEMC,EMS, or become involved in planningactivities, please contact either CharlesRandell (Charles.Randell@c-core.ca) orKathleen Chafe (chafek@ieee.org).

Recent Events

IEEE Region 7 Meetings

May 2 – 5, 2003Location: Montreal

The spring meeting of Region 7 (IEEECanada) Executive, which includes theChair of each Section in the region, wasrecently held in Montreal. Dennis Petersand Kathleen Chafe were pleased to takepart in these meetings on behalf of ourSection. Some highlights are providedbelow.

The region will support the QuebecSection in its very strong bid to host the2008 IEEE Section's Congress in QuebecCity, which will be celebrating its 400th

anniversary that year.

The Newfoundland and LabradorSection was presented with a bannerfrom IEEE Canada that commemorates

the 25th anniversary of our Section.Although we had operated during 1974through 1978 as a sub-section of theCanadian Atlantic Section, we becamean independent Section in December of1978 under the chairmanship of FrankSmith. A full list of all of the past chairsof our Section can be found in thehistory section of the IEEE Canada web-site (www.ieee.ca).

Dr. Dennis Peters receives banner fromIEEE Canada President Dr. Mo El-

Hawary

Co-located with the R7 meeting was ameeting of the Regional ActivitiesBoard (RAB) of IEEE, which includesdirectors from all 10 regions, so we hadthe opportunity to meet and hearpresentations by the IEEE president,Michael Adler as well as two candidatesfor President Elect, Cleon Anderson andMichael Lightner. (Vijay Bhargava haswithdrawn his candidacy due to his workcommitments.) Members are encouragedto exercise their right to vote when thepackages are mailed out in the Fall.

Also coinciding with the R7 meeting wasa meeting of the Eastern CanadaCouncil, composed of the Sections eastof Ottawa. Kathleen Chafe has beenelected to the role of Treasurer of theECC and attended in that capacity. TheECC executive participated in a pre-college education awareness workshopgiven by Douglas Gorham, the programmanager, details of which are providedlater in this newsletter.

The next regional meeting will be heldOctober 3-5 in Toronto.

Annual General Meeting

December 5, 2002Location: EN4002, S. J. CarewBuilding, MUN

Fifteen members attended our annualgeneral meeting. We enjoyed a veryinteresting presentation by SheldonAndrews concerning the year’s activitiesundertaken by the Student Branch of theIEEE Newfoundland and LabradorSection. This was followed by a tour ofthe McNaughton Centre where attendeeswere impressed with the Centre’sacoustic capabilities.

The Section was also delighted to haveDr. Mo El-Hawary give a spiritedpresentation on the currentorganizational structure of IEEE as wellas a review of the history of IEEE.

After the presentation members of theexecutive gave reports on their activitiesover the past year. Doug Squires wascongratulated and thanked for hisextremely valuable service on theExecutive over the past ten years and itwas announced that Paul Thorburnwould be replacing Doug as theSection’s Treasurer for 2003.

Technical Sessions

Pre-College EngineeringAwareness Workshop

On Wednesday, May 7, the IEEENewfoundland and Labrador Sectionoffered a workshop on Pre-CollegeEngineering Awareness. This half-daysession was held in MUN’s S.J. Carewbuilding on their St. John’s campus andincluded lunch. The workshop was ledby Dr. Douglas Gorham, Ed. D.,Manager of Pre-College Education forthe IEEE Educational Activities Board.

This was Dr. Gorham’s last stop in aseries of sessions held this month for theEastern Canada Council (ECC). His firstport of call was in Montreal on May 2, tomesh with IEEE Canada’s SpringMeeting. All ECC attendants werepresent for this training. Dr. Gorham

IEEE - Newfoundland and Labrador Section Newsletter www.ieee.nfld.net

also presented the workshop in Halifaxon May 5 and in Fredericton on May 6.

The intent of this program is ultimatelyto engage “champions” within theSection who will in turn developcollaborations with their local pre-university community to promoteengineering and science. In St. John’ssix people attended the workshop,including MUN faculty and graduatestudents as well as members fromindustry. The target audience is pre-university students, ranging fromelementary through to high school. Theintent is for these champions to workwith School Board program directorsand chairs, as well as motivated teachers,to enhance science and hands-onlearning for their students. In thismanner it is hoped that students willdevelop an enhanced appreciation fortechnology in general and engineering inparticular.

The workshop was well received andsets the stage to elevate this to the nextlevel: creating a concerted approachwithin our Section in accessing theSchool Board primes to advance themessage. The ECC, through StudentActivities chair Ferial El-Hawary,showed great leadership in coordinatingthis opportunity and thereby leading therest of the country. We truly appreciatethe involvement of the six volunteers,their employers for providing the time,MUN for the space and Dr. Gorham foran interesting presentation.

For more information on this programyou can refer to:http://www.ieee.org/organizations/eab/precollege/tispt/index.htm

Other Technical Activities

IEEE Newfoundland & Labrador Sectionpresented a full slate of activities in thefirst half of 2003 and the fall promises tobe just as active, beginning in Septemberafter the summer hiatus with a wine andcheese. Stay tuned for further detailslater in the summer.

In January we kicked off the year with afascinating tour of Newtech Instruments’state-of-the-art manufacturing facility.

The tour, presented by Gervase Whiteand Gordon Breen of Newtech, featuredan overview presentation on thecompany followed by a tour of the plantfloor. It was a great introduction to alocal leader in the design andmanufacture of world-class products.

In February, another tour, this time witha nautical twist – a tour of the CanadianCoast Guard’s South Side RegionalOperations Centre for a view of thetechnologies used in Coast Guardoperations followed by a tour of thebridge of one of the Coast Guard's stateof the art patrol vessels.

The next activity was in April, when theannual IEEE Student Paper night washeld at Memorial University. This eventis always well-attended, and with goodreason. The technical excellence of thestudent papers increases every year.

There is no technical activity in June,owing to the annual Lobster Boil andthere will be no tours in July or Augustas we take a break for the summer. Wewould encourage all members toparticipate in the fall activities. They arepresented for your benefit and are free ofcharge (with the occasional exception).They are a great way to network withyour colleagues while at the same timeengaging in an informal learningexperience. Why not take the time, ifyou already haven’t, to participate insome of the upcoming technicalactivities? Or, if you have an idea for atour or presentation you would like toconduct for the membership, we wouldbe delighted to hear from you. ContactGerard Dunphy at 737-1323 or by e-mailat g.Dunphy@ieee.org.

Students RepresentMemorial at ComputerScience Games

What would it be like if techno geekshad their own version of the OlympicGames? It would probably be a lot likethe Computer Science (CS) Games. Forthe duration of the second weekend inMarch, five Computer Science andEngineering students from Memorial

University headed to Montreal tocompete in the first ever CS Gameshosted by McGill University. Thisinterdisciplinary competition focused onbringing together Computer Science andEngineering students and challengingtheir cognitive thinking andprogramming skills.

The team, consisting of SheldonAndrews, Geoffrey Holden, Tom Smyth,Jon Anstey, and Jeremiah McCarthy,placed very well in several events.Taking second place in the Web-pageDesign and Shell Scripting events, andfirst place in a Logic Event #1, the teamearned a third place overall standing inthe academic portion of the Games. Theeighteen other universities that attendedthe Games offered stiff competition.Computer Science and Engineeringstudents from across Canada and theUnited States came out to represent theirschools at this pioneering competition.

Two of the team members, Sheldon andGeoffrey, are student IEEE members andreceived support to travel to the gamesfrom the IEEE Newfoundland andLabrador Section. Other sponsors forthe team included Memorial University’sComputer Science and Engineeringdepartments, and Cathexis Innovations, alocal technology firm. Participation ofthese students at the CS Games wouldnot have been possible without thissponsorship. Congratulations to the teamfor their success at the Games!

Awards

The academic year 2002-2003 has beenagain a busy and satisfying one for theAwards and Scholarships Committee ofthe local IEEE Section. The committeeappreciates all those from the universitycommunity and industry who have beeninvolved in making some often-difficultdecisions in determining appropriaterecipients of the varied honours. Theawards and recipients are highlightedbelow. The Section extends heartycongratulations to all award winners.

IEEE - Newfoundland and Labrador Section Newsletter www.ieee.nfld.net

Term 3 and Term 6Electrical/ComputerEngineering Scholarships

One of the many ways in which theNewfoundland and Labrador Sectionsupports and encourages studentinvolvement in IEEE activities is bymeans of scholarships offered to eligibleindividuals in Term 3 and Term 6 of theElectrical or Computer EngineeringPrograms at Memorial University.These scholarships, in addition toincreasing student interest in IEEE, areintended to aid promising students intheir ability to succeed at theundergraduate level while encouragingthem to think seriously about theirprofessional goals. The awards, valuedat $1000, are administered by MemorialUniversity in the fall of each academicyear and applications should be made tothe Awards Chair, Newfoundland andLabrador Section by October 1. Detailsmay be found on the Section’s website.

This year’s recipient of the Term 3Scholarship was Mr. Michael Burton.Michael holds the position of Treasurerfor the IEEE Student Branch, Society‘A’. In spite of only having joined theIEEE in January 2002, he has alreadybeen involved in several fundraisers aswell as in the maintenance of theMcNaughton Centre. In his first workedterm, he was involved with TheTeaching Machine project beingdeveloped by members of theengineering faculty at Memorial.Michael is pursuing a degree inComputer Engineering and remainscommitted to the IEEE Student Branch.

Unfortunately, in the fall of 2002, noeligible candidates were available for theTerm 6 Scholarship competition.

Term 8 Student Project Awards

The IEEE offers a variety of awardsrelated to the final-year projects of theElectrical/Computer Engineeringgraduating class. Awards are presentedfor both Best Project Demonstrationsand Best Oral Presentations. Dependingon the category, decisions are reachedbased on peer, industry, and academicevaluations. This year several of the

projects were of a very high calibre.Winners along with project titles were:

Best Demonstrations

Michael Snow – Design of a HybridEnergy System

Geoff Power – Harmonic Analysis andComparison of Vacuum-Tube versusSolid State Distortion

David Green – Affordable and VerifiedFencing Box

Tim Harrington (honourable mention) –An Interactive Guitar Tutoring Program

Best Presentations

Rose Wilson (1st Prize) – A NeonatalResuscitation Tool for Palm OS

Geoff Power (2nd Prize) – HarmonicAnalysis and Comparison of Vacuum-Tube versus Solid State Distortion

Dawn Layden (3rd Prize) – PowerSystem Dynamic PerformanceEnhancement Using Flexible ACTransmission System Devices

Convocation Award

This award, which consists of acertificate and a cash prize, is presentedat the Spring Convocation to agraduating student in the Faculty ofEngineering and Applied Science(Electrical or Computer EngineeringProgram) who has had a consistentlygood academic record in the professionalcourses required for the degree and whohas made a significant contribution to theFaculty and to the IEEE student branch.This year’s recipient is Ms. Lori Hogan,a Computer Engineering Graduate. Ms.Hogan served as vice-chair of theStudent Branch, Society B, for twoyears. She has been actively involved inpromoting events which allow localbusinesses to interact with theengineering student body. She hasregularly attended IEEE technicalmeetings and twice represented theBranch at national leadershipconferences. Additionally, Ms. Hoganhas maintained a high academic standing

throughout her programme and is nowpursuing graduate studies in the Facultyof Engineering and Applied Science.

Student BranchActivities

As part of Engineering Week, a crystalradio competition was held at the AvalonMall. Radio kits were supplied to severalschools in the St. John's area and DarrenNeary, a student from O'Donnell HighSchool won the top prize. His radio wasin the design of a spray painted modeltruck. We hope to make this competitiona regular part of the Engineering Weekactivities.

Future Engineer? Engineering Week at AvalonMall

MembershipDevelopment

We currently have 106 active members,40 members in arrears, and 111delinquent members (have not paid duesin past 1 to 3 years).Those in arrears canrenew online at the following URL:http://www.ieee.org/recovery

Also, please see the following URL:http://www.ieee.org/organizations/rab/md/mgm.html for information on theMember-Get-Member campaign whichrewards members for recruiting newmembers.

IEEE :Networking The World…