Project Term: Fall 2019

ProCS came to the ACE Project Space with a vision to provide builders with a customized building information modeling (BIM) solution available from anywhere around the world that employees can use to work on and discuss building designs. The BIT and BTM students assigned to the project were able to transform the solution concept into a tangible product suitable for demonstration purposes.

Optimizing performance to build a quality product

The BIM project started last term at the ACE Project Space with a working demo on a local machine. The next stage was to deploy the solution to a cloud provider that client companies and their employees could access online.  The students learned how to test online performance and use their teamwork, communication, and problem-solving skills to improve the BIM solution’s overall performance.

Deliverables

The ProCS team completed the following deliverables for the project during the fall term at the ACE Project Space:

• Online BIM viewer
• Administration page
• Bug fixes

What our students are saying

“Working with the team for this project, my duties revolved around the role of a Project Manager. Learning the way how the industry works was quite a new experience for me. I learned being professional and punctual. I learned how to keep up with targets and deadline and prioritizing the tasks according to the requirements of the client. Doing standup meeting, discussing the problems being faced by the team members and sorting them out by involving the client and project sponsor into it were some of the daily done tasks by me. Another important thing that I learned from the experience working here was how communication is the key to solving any problem being faced by any team member.” – Dilraj Marwah

“Working as a front-end developer in the BIM project, I got to learn and experience working with other team members and how the joint efforts of the team members get the project to the end point as the client wants it to be. To work as a front-end developer, I learned working using react and python languages. Also at parts of the project, I had to go and work on the back end to develop some of the functionalities that the client wanted to add to the viewer and learning how to work on code that has already been developed, analyzing, understanding it and working with the other back end developer was quite a great learning experience.” – Owen Beatty

Technologies used

• JavaScript
• React
• Python
• Django
• MongoDB
• Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Entrepreneurs and members of Red River College faculty enjoyed a catered lunch & learn presentation about the funding opportunities provided by Mitacs, a national not-for-profit organization that builds partnerships between industry and post-secondary institutions to support industrial and social innovation in Canada with the ultimate goal of commercializing academic research.

Brent Wennekes, Director of Business Development (Manitoba) at Mitacs, described how their Accelerate program pairs entrepreneurs and companies working across all sectors of the economy with student research opportunities. Mr. Wennekes provided details about the funding model and the application process, which include a $7,500 contribution from a business in exchange for a $15,000 research award from Mitacs to support a research student intern for four months. Mitacs funding has spearheaded many of the four-month projects delivered at the ACE Project Space.

Mitacs funding recipient and CEO of ioAirFlow, Matt Schaubroeck, described his experience of having leveraged Mitacs funding while working a full-time job to kickstart his new venture. Mr. Schaubroek’s company is building an AI-supported solution using a network of temperature sensors to provide building owners and tenants with the data they need to increase energy efficiency. The research student embedded at the ACE Project Space as part of the ioAirFlow project was integral in building a marketable solution that won stage time at the Falling Walls Lab pitch contest in Berlin.

Stephen Lawrence, ACE Project Space Coordinator, shared the opportunity and process that lend to entrepreneurs the application development skills of fourth term students at the ACE Project Space with support from Mitacs. Mr. Lawrence described how the mutually beneficial relationship provides students with valuable real life project experience while providing entrepreneurs with the ability to bring their ideas to fruition.

To learn more about how to bring your business ideas to life at the ACE Project Space, please contact Stephen Lawrence, ACE Project Space Coordinator or visit our ACE Project Space web site.

Project Term: Summer 2019

TAIV enables business owners to create, schedule and play their own TV advertisements instead of the commercials that appear during the broadcast. This helps establishments create a targeted audience and drive sales. During the summer term at the ACE Project Space, a team of students completed a number of enhancements to improve the user experience. Read More →

Project Term: Summer 2019

The ACE Project Space required a robust and scalable application to better manage change and incident requests, assets and those using them. The system that was in use was clunky and did not provide the full range of functionality that the Change Advisory Board (CAB) was looking for. A student team at the ACE Project Space went about designing the application from scratch. The purpose was to deliver a working application with asset, user and change management functionality by the end of the four-month term. Completing the application was accomplished through extensive research and learning through Lynda, Code Academy and Udemy as well as collaboration with the RPI research group. Read More →

Project Term: Summer 2019

Red River Bookstore has been operating for decades and has amassed a huge inventory of used books, comics, music, movies, video games and other miscellaneous items. With such a large inventory and very little online presence, the bookstore staff could not meet the growing demands without integrating digital solutions. ACE Project Space students worked with the bookstore to gather their requirements, and then build viable solutions to help the business manage its inventory. Read More →

Project Term: Summer 2019

The Manitoba Genealogical Society (MGS) organizes and archives information about the lives of Manitobans and their family relationships. In a previous term at the ACE Project Space, students helped to build the consolidated Manitoba Name Index (MANI) service to provide a central source for searching genealogical data. During the summer term, a new team of students worked on improvements to the MANI codebase and delivered a number of enhancements to improve the user experience and create new revenue generation opportunities. Read More →

Project Term: Summer 2019

Equal Opportunities West is a Winnipeg-based non-profit organization that provides support services to adults with developmental disabilities, helping them to attain meaningful employment. The organization’s rapid growth in the past five years increased the burden of administering activities involving staff, students, and vehicle assets. Employees were using a paper-based system and board to set activities, track assets and communicate with staff. The system could not keep up with all the activities and associated changes happening simultaneously.  A team of students from the ACE Project Space built a comprehensive resource management system to digitize the organization’s current system and improve business processes. Read More →

Project Term: Summer 2019

Manitoba Angel Dresses is a volunteer-driven organization whose vision and mission is to ease the stress of families grieving from the loss of their stillborn child. Volunteers create personalized dresses and other clothing items from donated bridal and bridesmaid gowns that are later used for dressing the babies to provide an opportunity for families to share a grieving experience and take photographs to provide a lasting memory. The organization was working with an outdated system for tracking their donation and new creation inventories. ACE Project Space students created a simple web application to improve the user experience of managing the organization’s inventory. Read More →

Project Term: Winter 2019

The traditional process of facilitating peer tutoring can be a daunting task for many K-12 teachers and higher education institutions. Due North, an educational technology startup, worked with our students to build a digital platform to easily recruit, organize, connect, and schedule peer tutors with tutees. This result-based application has since been implemented in a number of Manitoba schools.
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Project Term: Winter 2019

BTM students worked with the ACE department to build a robust change management system to minimize IT infrastructure incidents while providing processes and tools to maximize productivity for our students, faculty, ACE partners, and guests. Existing service desk solutions were investigated and evaluated. In addition, the students prepared wireframes for an alternative custom-built solution.
Read More →