Lassonde students win National Design Competition

A team of Lassonde students won first place in this year’s National Design Competition hosted by the Canadian Society of Mechanical Engineering. This year’s design challenge was to engineer, build, and assemble a 3D printer designed within a fixed budget of 300 dollars. The awards were given out at the CANCAM conference on June 1st in London, Ontario.

Lassonde students excelled this year with a creative design that was both technically ingenious and business sound, while built from basic components on a small budget.

“Successfully building a printer that can print other [not space-related] components has not only increased my knowledge and interest in anything mechanical, but my personal confidence as a student engineer has grown significantly as well,” says Alex Boucaud, team lead and fourth-year Space Engineering student at Lassonde.

The annual competition is hosted by the Canadian Society of Mechanical Engineering and encourages students to demonstrate creativity and innovation while showcasing their business development skills and grasp of design principles. Despite the fixed budget, Lassonde students produced a high-quality and low-cost, functioning 3D printer. This 3D printer also won a top prize at Lassonde’s Capstone engineering competition for the “Most Commercial Project.

This year’s challenge tested the Lassonde students’ business acumen, technical skills and design expertise. The proposed innovative design exhibited an integrated and elegant solution to the CSME challenge. The winning team demonstrated that it takes a true Renaissance Engineer to succeed in the creation of an effective commercial design, even when faced with limited resources.