Newsletter 2012 - Issue 2

PEOSC Newsletter – 2012 Issue 2 (Fall 2012)

www.scarborough.peo.on.ca

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Chair’s Message N. Asogan, P.Eng. Chair, Scarborough Chapter – PEO

I thank the Board of Executives, Councillors, Volunteers and members of Scarborough Chapter for the support extended to me during the second year of my term, to achieve a great year of operation.

Our monthly BOE meetings had an average of 16 members, including members at large and newly licensed engineers, participating. The chapter assigns different leaders for our popular events like Popsicle Stick Bridge Building Contest (BBC as lovingly known) and Mathletics, thus exposing more of our volunteers to project management. The chapter extended assistance to two chapters of other regions in conducting Mathletics this year.

The chapter pioneered a new program for school children in grades 9 and 10 to show their innovative ideas in a practical way to construct an electric motor-driven model car and race them, using mechanical, electrical and electronic knowledge called mechatronics, which is a growing technology encompassing various disciplines of engineering. By introducing this program, the chapter again took a leading role as done in 2004 and 2006 by introducing the Bridge Building Contest (BBC) and Mathletics respectively. The chapter attracted new volunteers to take active participation in our events, made close ties with a secondary school and maintained a strong collaboration with the community and politicians. The chapter participated in many political events and had the local MPPs at our events. The chapter has a vision to increase our presence among the community and politicians so that the engineering profession will be appreciated more.

Chapter Activities – Summary Since June 2012

July 21, 2012 – Family Event – BBQ July 26, 2012 – Technical Seminar – “Floods &

Flash Floods’ August 09, 2012 – Technical Seminar – “Build Your

Career” September 05, 2012 – Certificate Presentation

Ceremony (CPC) September 08, 2012 – EIT Welcome Event October 27, 2012 – Mathletics

November 24, 2012 – Mechatronics December 22, 2012 - Volunteer Appreciation

Dinner

Notice of AGM 2013

Date: February 23, 2013 Time: 4:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Venue: Yee Hong Centre, 60 Scottfield Drive

All officers and executives will be elected at the Annual General Meeting. According with the chapter By-Laws, Section 8, the chapter board consists of:

Four elected officers – Chair, Vice Chair, Treasurer and Secretary

The immediate Past Chair – not elected Four elected executives.

If you are interested in serving the chapter board, please contact the Search Committee Chair – Denis Carlos,

P.Eng., before February 09, 2013. Nomination forms are available on the website – see under AGM 2013. Please consult Chapter bylaws for eligibility criteria. Full details can be found on the chapter website: www.scarborough.peo.on.ca/

PEO Council Elections

From 2013, voting will be conducted electronically either by phone or online, and mail in ballots will no longer be distributed. List of candidates and voting instructions will be mailed no later than January 25, 2013. Voting will commence on the date that the voting packages are mailed and close at 4:00 p.m. on March 1, 2013. Council candidates are:

President: J. David Adams, P.Eng., MBA, FEC; Paul

Ballantyne, P.Eng., FEC; Corneliu E. Chisu, P.Eng., M.Eng., CD, FEC; George R. Comrie, P.Eng., CMC

Vice President: Christian Bellini, P.Eng; Thomas Chong,

M.Sc., P.Eng., FEC, PMP

Councillor at large: James Chisholm, M.Eng., P.Eng.;

Roydon A. Fraser, P.Eng., Ph.D., FEC; Roger Jones, P.Eng., M.Phil, MBA, SMIEEE; Wenqin Shao, P.Eng., MBA, M.Sc

East Central Region Councillor: Nicholas (Nick) Colucci,

P.Eng., BASc, MBA, FEC; Changiz Sadr, P.Eng., FEC, CTP, CTME; Rajiv Srivastava, M.Eng., P.Eng.

Further details at http://www.peo.on.ca/

PEOSC Newsletter 2012 - Issue 2 2

Certificate Presentation Ceremony 2012

Murad Hussain, P.Eng. Treasurer, PEOSC

It has become a tradition for PEO Scarborough Chapter to welcome into the profession, twice a year, the newly licensed Scarborough engineers. The Fall Certificate Presentation Ceremony for the newly licensed engineers was held on Wednesday, September 05, 2012, at 6:00 p.m. at Grand Baccus Banquet & Conference Centre, 2155 McNicoll Avenue, Toronto. Hon. Soo Wong, Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services and MPP for Scarborough Agincourt, and Neil Mitchell, SVP, Nuclear Refurbishment Engineering, OPG, attended the occasion and presented the certificates.

The ceremony was also a good opportunity for all the new professional engineers within the Scarborough boundaries to meet the chapter board of directors, and share ideas about the involvement of the engineering profession in the community.

Seated L-R: Rachel A. Yoganathan, P.Eng.; Rafay Muhammad Rashid, P.Eng.; Ramon Jeet Singh Virk, P.Eng.; Shahid Mohammad Neaz, P.Eng.; Wasay Rizwan, P.Eng.; Wei Qiao, P.Eng.; Wei Shi Lu, P.Eng.; Weinan Zhang, P.Eng.

Lower row, L-R: Ka Kui Ho, P.Eng.; Keith Kai-Wah Li, P.Eng.; Lian Ze Gong, P.Eng.; Mahya Mokhtari, P.Eng.; Mario Fernandes, P.Eng.; Maryam Reza, P.Eng.; Md Moinuddin Bhuiyan, P.Eng.; Mohammad Kabriul Hassan, P.Eng.; Mohammad Zahid Hossain, P.Eng.; Muhammad Aslam, P.Eng.; Paul Claude Grylis, P.Eng.; Pompilian Tofilescu, P.Eng.; Prashanda Kumar Saha, P.Eng. Upper row, L-R: A.S.M. Shawkatul Islam, P.Eng.; A.G Kwan, P.Eng.; Ahmed F. Gouda, P.Eng.; Aburba Bhowmik, P.Eng.; Daniel Caliwag Alonzo, P.Eng.; Edward Wing Wah Chan, P.Eng.; Gary Tan, P.Eng.; Hani W. Gourgui Mishriki, P.Eng.; Hong Shen, P.Eng.; Jawad Ali, P.Eng.; John Matthew Bajur, P.Eng.; Joseph Ezekiel Gowrie, P.Eng.

Mentorship Program (Phase 3) Raji Ravi, P.Eng.

Mentorship Program Coordinator

PEO launched a program of Mentorship in 2010 to assist engineering interns to progress toward obtaining their P.Eng. licence. Scarborough Chapter is one of the chapters that agreed to participate in Phase 3 of the program. The Mentorship Program (Phase 3) will begin in early 2013.

Mathletics Competition -- A

Review Syed Raza, P.Eng.

Mathletics 2012 Project Manager

PEO Scarborough Chapter successfully organized the annual Mathletics competition, which was held at Scarborough Civic Centre on October 27. This year, 47 junior students and 20 senior students registered for the competition in each category.

Councillor Raymond Cho, Councillor Chin Lee and MPP Soo Wong attended the occasion. The success of this event is not possible without the contribution of time, effort and dedication of PEO Scarborough Chapter members and volunteers. Finally, congratulations and thanks to the students, parents, teachers, volunteers and guests who made Mathletics 2012 very successful.

PEOSC Newsletter 2012 - Issue 2 3

GLP Activities at PEOSC Urszula Adach, M.Eng., P.Eng. GLP Coordinator On June 15, 2012, the fundraising picnic/BBQ for Margarett Best, MPP, Scarborough Guildwood, in Masaryktown Park was attended by Nirmalan Vadivel, EIT, and Urszula Adach, P.Eng., GLP Chair. The supporters of Soo Wong, MPP, Scarborough Agincourt, organized a fundraising dinner on September 20, 2012. Among attendees were Michael Chan, MPP, Markham-Unionville, former MPP Gerry Phillips, and PEO Regional Councillor Thomas Chong, P.Eng. PEO Scarborough Chapter was represented by Urszula. The PEO Queen’s Park Day took place on October 17, 2012. The event gathered a large number of attendees, including Soo Wong, MPP, Scarborough Agincourt, and Parliamentary Assistant to the Attorney General Lorenzo Berardinetti, MPP, Scarborough SouthWest. The Scarborough Chapter was represented by Asogan and Urszula. On November 21, 2012, the “A Taste of the Rouge” fundraising dinner for Bas Balkissoon, MPP, Scarborough Rouge River, was attended by Asogan. Other attendees included Soo Wong, MPP, Scarborough Agincourt, Michael Chan, MPP, Markham-Unionville, PEO Regional Councillor Thomas Chong, P.Eng., and PEO Chapter Manager Matthew Ng, P.Eng. The reception for Tracy MacCharles, MPP, Pickering-Scarborough East, was attended by Minister of Health, Deb Matthews, MPP, London North Centre, Joe Dickson, MPP, Ajax-Pickering, former MPP and Minister Alvin Curling and Urszula.

Mechatronics 2012 N. Madusuthanan, P.Eng. MCC Coordinator On November 24, 2012, the first Mechatronics Cars Contest (MCC) was introduced successfully at L’Amoreaux Collegiate Institute by PEO Scarborough Chapter. Despite the "legal strike" by teachers, seven teams of grades 9 and 10 students took part in this historic event. To make up for the low turnout of the students, we organized a race by the chapter volunteer engineers, which added to the excitement with very original car designs. The winning student team clocked 6.302 seconds for the 20-metre race, averaging 11.42 km/hour. The Mechatronics project was initiated in 2011 when the Education Committee of PEO requested new project ideas. A design concept and the racing details

were formulated. Specialized parts for the racing cars were distributed to the participating students. Apart from the racing of the cars, we tested the fundamentals and understanding of the principles of electrical, electronic and mechanical knowledge that each team put into the design process. We could see last minute adjustments and soldering done to their cars by referring to the guideline we placed in our website by male and female students alike and their level of knowledge that impressed the judges at the

interview. Summarizing, on the day of the event we could see a hive of activities with students frantically making last minute adjustments to get their cars running at top performance. We were pleasantly surprised at the high degree of details and notes and drawings the students brought to the interview. It was a win-win day for the students and volunteers. We hope this event will become an annual event, where many solutions can be refined; many new problems can be identified and solved. Some of the students were sad that next year they will be in grade 11and will not be able to take part! Well, it may be worth having a more senior level contest for grades 11 and 12.

The results, specifications and conditions, questions and answers, photographs and video link to a YouTube video of the event can be seen at: www.scarborough.peo.on.ca. Our thanks are due to our volunteers for a good time and the great learning had by all.

PEOSC Newsletter 2012 - Issue 2 4

Aspiring Engineering Scholarship 2012

Each year, PEO is pleased to award two scholarships, for one male and one female graduating high school student, each worth $500. Consolation Scholarships are also awarded by the PEO Scarborough Chapter from the selected interviewees. On September 5, 2012 during the CPC event, Hon. Soo Wong, MPP for Scarborough Agincourt, awarded two $500 cheques to Veronica Riehl (Sir Wilfrid Laurier CI) and Alan Li (L'Amoreaux CI), recipients of the 2012 Aspiring Engineering Scholarship. Consolation scholarships were awarded to the following six recipients:

Cedric Mosdell (Agincourt CI); Gabrielle Psotka (Birchmount Park CI); Joan Padaloy (Mary Ward CSS); Julie Zhang (Agincourt CI); Nicholas Robson (Sir Wilfrid Laurier CI); and Zarana Bavishi (Woburn CI).

Jega Jeganathan, P.Eng. Secretary, PEOSC

Build your Career -- As an Engineer Technical Seminar Review

Ram Jagdat, P.Eng. On the invitation of the Scarborough Chapter of PEO, Carl Friesen, MBA, Certified Management Consultant, gave a presentation titled “Build Your Career through Publishing your Ideas for Engineers” on August 9, 2012. Carl Friesen is an experienced journalist and management consultant of Global Research

Communications. The presentation was on “how to get published in various magazines for free” so that engineers can become better known among the public, prospective employers and clients.

The event was well attended by engineers of a wide discipline and age group, generating interesting questions from these engineers. One young engineer, querying how this can be of benefit to younger professionals, was surprised to learn that even budding engineers can use this strategy by working with experienced engineers to get themselves published as their junior authors. The talk was most welcomed by the large group of engineers attending, and judging by the abundance of questions from the participants at the end of Mr. Friesen’s talk, it is an area of interest engineers are keen to learn more about. More details of the subjects he covered can be found on his webpage at http://www.showyourexpertise.com/

Volunteer Appreciation Dinner The chapter’s success in organizing and conducting community activities like BBC and Mathletics for school children in Scarborough, providing assistance to other PEO chapters and community organizations like Panorama India to conduct Mathletics and other activities, such as visits to engineering installations and technical seminars is related to the active participation of volunteers. Volunteer appreciation is a way for the Board of Executives to say “Thank You” to those volunteers who spent their time actively participating in the events annually. For 2012, chapter volunteers were appreciated on December 22 at a dinner/get-together.

Editor: Jega Jeganathan, Ph.D., P.Eng.

We welcome our readers’ contributions:

Articles of engineering interest, and subjects of interest to the engineering community (within guidelines of PEO) Suggestions for future events – seminars/technical visits/workshops, etc. Suggestions for improvement of newsletter/website.

Contact: editor@peoscarborough.ca, Website: www.scarborough.peo.on.ca