PCM's entry challenge was to write the controller for a 10-speed automatic transmission. We were given the plant, a longitudinal vehicle model with an engine, torque converter and gearbox, plus a system specification. Our controller reads the gear lever, throttle, brake, vehicle speed and engine RPM, then decides the gear, the parking brake and the final throttle.

We wrote the requirements first, built the gear-selector logic as a Stateflow state machine, and verified it with automated tests linked to each requirement. We presented it to the PCM leads at the McMaster Automotive Resource Centre (MARC), and it earned me my spot on the team.

A side-scrolling runner on a character LCD. The cat dodges star obstacles that scroll in from the right, faster and faster. One pushbutton makes it jump, the game keeps your score and best score, and a piezo buzzer beeps faster as the speed climbs and plays a crash sound when you hit a star.

The main loop runs on a fixed 20 Hz tick. A fractional speed accumulator lets obstacles move less than one column per tick, so scrolling stays smooth even though the LCD can only draw whole characters. The sprites are custom 5×8 pixel characters.

The brief: check passenger luggage in by ticket type (economy, business, layover) and move it from the conveyor platform down to the plane, using either a rotary or a linear actuator but not both. Our design catches the bag in a bucket, and a rotary actuator, geared up for torque, turns the bucket over so the bag slides onto the lower platform.

In C++, we wrote one controller that picks every ant's move each step. The colony's food map is built only from what the ants actually sense, and every trip is planned on energy cost. Unseen terrain is assumed to cost the maximum, so the colony never commits to a trip it can't afford.

An assistive kitchen tool for a client with Usher syndrome, which limits her sight and hearing. The design had to be easy to use, high-contrast, easy to move around, low-cost and safe.

Attachable picket-style walls guide each cut, a roofed finger guard with stabilizing spikes protects her hand, and a custom knife handle keeps her grip steady and directed.

We chose a filter material for algae-choked treatment ponds in Tampakan, Philippines, targeting contaminants of 1 to 100 µm. We ranked candidates in Ansys Granta EduPack using material performance indices for carbon footprint and production energy, and selected UHMWPE fibre.

We estimated porosity by comparing the Young's modulus of porous and solid material from Ashby charts and the Granta database. At about 7.3%, the fibre keeps the strength it needs for filtration.