New session starting October 2019

What you will learn:

• Differences between residential and commercial tests
• Building science and driving forces of air leakage
• Testing standards and code requirements
• Test considerations and planning
• Required materials and equipment
• First-hand experience with setup and use of blower door equipment
• Trouble-shooting common problems encountered during testing

This workshop concludes with a full live test at the Centre for Applied Research in Sustainable Infrastructure (CARSI) at Red River College, which will incorporate diagnostic tools and data analysis.

Each session will be limited to 12 participants.

Course date and cost

Dates: October 16-18, 2019

Times: 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (will end at 2 p.m. on the last day to allow time for travel)

Cost: $1,495 + GST (includes parking, lunch and morning coffee)

Location: Red River College, 2055 Notre Dame Ave., Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Registration

To register, call or email:
Alexis Epp
204.632.2036 | aepp33@rrc.ca

Instruction

Learn from instructors whose experience ranges from applied research-related to energy efficiency, field observation, commercial and residential airtightness testing, commissioning, education, training and more.

Additional course information:

Cory Carson
204.631.3325 | ccarson31@rrc.ca

Other course offerings can be found at rrc.ca/techsolutions

NSERC‘s College and Community Innovation program will be launching a new competition for the College and Community Social Innovation Fund (CCSIF). The competition will be launched this summer with an application deadline in fall 2019. Applicants will be invited to apply for up to $120,000 per year for a duration of one to two years.

CCSIF grants are intended to support college social innovation research projects in areas such as education, integration of vulnerable populations and community development, in partnership with local community organizations. For your reference, you may also wish to review the program details from the 2017 CCSIF competition, however, please note that the program details may be revised for the 2019 competition.

More program details will be available in the coming weeks. Please contact colleges@nserc-crsng.gc.ca with any questions.

Are you interested in learning more about developing a co-curricular research shop model? Sign up for the latest webinar from Community-Based Research Canada (CBRC) – a national facilitator for community-based research (CBR) and campus-community engagement in Canada. Here is more information from their website:

“A research shop is a co-curricular post-secondary initiative where student volunteers work on research projects in the community. In the context of funding cuts in post-secondary education, lean and precarious resources for non-profit organizations, and multiple drivers towards experiential education, how does a research shop respond most effectively to community research requests? This webinar will present McMaster University’s experience formalizing its research shop, striving to be sustainable and relevant while balancing community needs and student experiences.”

The webinar takes place on Thursday, July 18 at 11am CST. Register here.

The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) is seeking applications to its PromoScience Grant. PromoScience supports activities and content designed for youth in elementary school and high school, their teachers, and activities that will encourage Indigenous undergraduate students to pursue graduate studies in natural sciences and engineering.

NSERC invites applications that promote the natural sciences and engineering to Canada’s young people, particularly to groups such as girls and Indigenous peoples that are under-represented in scientific and engineering careers.

The application deadline is September 15, 2019. For more information and to apply, please visit their website.

The Honourable Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science and Sport, announced new federal funding this morning from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council’s (NSERC) College and Community Innovation (CCI) program that will spice up Red River College’s Culinary Research & Innovation (CRI) program.

The Technology Access Centre (TAC) grant will provide $1.75 million over five years, adding flavour to the program’s culinary research kitchen, a state-of-the-art facility set to open at the Paterson GlobalFoods Institute later this summer.

“This funding empowers our Culinary Research & Innovation area to expand their already rich and advanced program,” said Ray Hoemsen, Executive Director of Research Partnerships & Innovation at RRC. “Our researchers have the opportunity to help fill the gap between idea and full scale-up food centres in Western Canada, and continue to support food companies by providing access to the vast resources of researchers, instructors and students at the College.”

The Culinary Research TAC will be Red River College’s third Technology Access Centre, joining the existing Building Envelope Technology Access Centre (BETAC) and the Technology Access Centre for Aerospace & Manufacturing (TACAM).

The Culinary Research TAC will provide culinary-focused food research to food manufacturing and food services businesses. RRC’s team of chefs and food scientists will work with industry partners, as well as RRC’s School of Hospitality and Culinary Arts instructors and students, to provide unique chef-created product prototypes ready for scale-up and commercialization. Food processing is one of the largest manufacturing sectors in Manitoba.

Recent successes from CRI include a soy-free pea-based tempeh prototype, developed with recent Culinary Arts graduate Anna Borys using Manitoba plant-based proteins. The product won second place at the College’s third-annual Applied Research & Innovation Day.

Canada’s Technology Access Centres (TACs) are specialized applied research & development centres affiliated with publicly-funded colleges and cégeps. TACs are specialized applied research and development centres affiliated with Canadian colleges or cégeps. Learn more at tech-access.ca.

The Opportunity 

Equipment set-up at Parker Hannifin

Parker Hannifin uses the surface mount technology (SMT) for circuit board assembly. Hundreds of parts are picked and placed in a matter of seconds. Defects such as missing and wrong orientation of parts were being observed during final quality inspection/testing. These defects mostly occur in chips about 3 x 1 x 1 mm in size and are usually undetected by automatic inspection techniques built into the production process, resulting in lengthy rework or outright scrapping of the parts. 

The Approach 

RRC’s expertise in high speed imaging was leveraged by Parker Hannifin to study and determine the root cause of the assembly defects. The “pick and place” processes were studied, using in-production and off-production simulated circuit boards. Large imaging data were analyzed to determine the problem. 

The Outcomes

A closer look at the SMT process

As observed by high-speed imaging, the root cause of the assembly defects is the flipping and “misorientation” of parts in the pockets of unnoticeably faulty twin-tape part feeders. These feeders were isolated for repair/replacement. 

The Benefits 

• Flexible and responsive access to emerging technology and technical expertise with reduced cost to Parker Hannifin 
• Determination of the root-cause of a problem that disrupts / halts production activities 

Testimonial

Part missing due to dislodgment

 “Collaboration with RRC was instrumental in finding the true root cause of our “pick” issue. Finding and correcting the root cause gave us a significant step improvement in quality and productivity” 

— Bob Dann, Technical Services Manager 

Collaborator

The Opportunity 

Kelso Energy LTD. manufactures vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT) that meet the electricity demands of cellphone towers, isolated communities, research centres, agricultural farms, cottages, ranches, and many other unique applications. Operational efficiency of the VAWT requires performance optimization, which is difficult to achieve by field-testing and trial & error approaches. Kelso also experiences significant fabrication problems including inconsistent product quality, longer fabrication times, and laborious design modifications due to lack of a standardized design blueprint. 

CFD data and flow field

The Approach 

Performance optimization of VAWTs is a fluid flow problem, which is usually difficult to replicate using small-scale prototypes in laboratory environments. Kelso collaborated with TACAM on (1) the 3D CAD modeling to create a blueprint, and (2) analyzing various materials-design-fluid flow parameters for performance optimization of the VAWT, using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). 

The Outcomes 

TACAM delivered a complete blueprint of the 5 kW VAWT to Kelso Energy in Fall 2017 and delivered final optimized design developed using results from CFD in January 2018. Kelso Energy is currently fabricating the VAWT based on the designs submitted as part of this project. 

The Benefits 

• Availability of standardized blueprint for product performance analysis and improvement 
• Significant cost savings of product performance improvement
  

  Installation of Kelso’s Vertical Axis Wind Turbine

Testimonial 

Kelso Energy was very pleased with the professionalism of the Technology Access Centre team. The CFD work and the completed blueprints helped in moving our company forward in performance and promotion of the turbines. Kelso realized a significant increase in the overall power output of the VAWT. This work provided Kelso with a uniform and easy-to-understand set of blueprints used for production and bidding process for components. We realized increased sales and ROI.”

Collaborators

The Opportunity 

Developing robust sensors for harsh environments requires innovation and the opportunity to access emerging technology. Iders Incorporated is developing a new device for measuring structural distortions in rail lines. Fabrication of the device requires the use of advanced welding or joining processes to support dissimilar metal bonds.

Building robust sensors for rail safety

The Approach 

A custom procedure based upon micro-laser welding was developed for fabricating the device. RRC contributed expertise in laser processing of materials and provided direct access to the right laser technology at the CATT Centre. 

The Outcomes 

A number of unique micro laser joints which meet the required performance characteristics were produced in the sensor assembly. Subsequently, several assemblies were fabricated at the CATT Centre as part of Iders pre-production prototyping and field testing programs 

The Benefits 

• Flexible and responsive access to emerging technology and technical expertise for the project 
• Reduced cost for process development – absolutely no initial capital cost to Iders 
• Fabrication of new sensor prototypes without disrupting regular production 

Testimonial

Micro-laser welding to support new sensor development

“RRC’s expertise and capabilities through the CATT Centre allowed us to overcome a significant materials and fabrication problem associated with an advanced sensor we are trying to bring to market. Our technical problem was solved, quickly and efficiently.” 

— David Fletcher, VP and COO, iders 

Collaborator:

Ray Hoemsen at Applied Research & Innovation Day 2019

Ray Hoemsen, Executive Director of Research Partnerships & Innovation, recently became one of six new appointments to the National Research Council Canada (NRC) Council. The Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, and the Honourable Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science and Sport, announced the new appointments on Thursday, June 6, 2019.

Hoemsen is the second Manitoban to be on the NRC Council in the last 11 years.

The NRC is the Government of Canada’s largest science and research organization, supporting Canadian industrial innovation, the advancement of knowledge and the development of technology. For more information, please visit their website.

Congratulations, Ray!

Red River College’s third-annual Applied Research & Innovation Day was a great success, with innovative student research projects running the gamut from smart technology, to plant-based proteins, to advancements in health and social sciences.

The event also demonstrated the future is bright for women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) – as women researchers took home the first, second, and third place prizes, as well as the people’s choice award. Here’s a look at their award-winning projects:

First Place:

Natural Language Processing – Chatbot

Student: Victoria McNab
School: Business and Applied Arts
Referred by: Randall Peters, Instructor – Business Information Technology

“This project aims to process millions of historical chat records, to develop an industry specific, assistive chatbot trained on this data using an offline environment, with no access to cloud computing resources. Rapid RTC provides online chat services to their customers, along with receptionist support. My goal is to use machine learning, and Natural Language Processing techniques to help the receptionists build better customer relationships by extracting the topics being discussed and analyzing the sentiment of the discussions. Using unsupervised machine learning, I applied the Latent Dirichlet Allocation algorithm to model the topics being discussed. In parallel, I applied statistical analysis techniques to manually determine topics, which gave me a result set to evaluate models against.”

Second Place:

Manitoba Soy-Free Tempeh

Student: Anna Borys
School/Program/Class: Culinary Arts
Referred by: Mavis McRae – Culinary Research and Innovation

“Tempeh is traditionally made from hulled soy beans, the purpose of the project is to create a non-soy tempeh, using a different source of pulses. Initially, we used traditional methods to making a yellow pea tempeh, however resulted in substandard product. To get a product that more closely resembles a more traditional tempeh, we altered cooking and culture variables. Although no clients were initially incorporated into this project, the work is applicable to companies such as Manitoba Pulse and Soy Growers Association, Best Cooking Pulses, AGT, or Prairie Fava. Further work to optimize product to commercial standards would be required.”

Third Place:

Acid-based Cleaning Solution for Animal Barns and Related Areas

Student(s): Erum Naz
School/Program/Class: Health Sciences and Community Services
Referred by: Said Hassan, Instructor

“This project involved developing an acid based cleaning solution for use in animal barns and related areas. This project was conducted for our client Precision Chemicals a Manitoba company which is primarily in the business of developing innovative solutions to farming problems. Precision Chemicals markets an alkaline barn cleaning solution, Bioshredder. However, the company wanted to also market an acid base solution. This project started by investigating various emulsifying and foaming agents. The project then proceeded by making various formulations and trying them in simulated real life environment. Eventually a product meeting the client’s specifications was developed and is being tried in the field.”

People’s Choice:

Reducing Post-Stroke Depression

Student(s): Samantha Eveleigh
School/Program/Class: Research and Scholarship in Nursing
Referred by: Meagan Chorney, Patrick Griffith

“Depression after stroke is considered a primary complication and can lead to decreased health outcomes. Despite this, there are limited studies that describe the individual’s experience with depression. With my lived experience of surviving a hemorrhagic stroke at the age of 18, my hope is to bridge the gap of knowledge and bring alive what is learned in theory.

Recovery from a stroke reveals depression in both immediate and long-term phases that may require intervention that could be led by nurses. Support to manage symptoms of depression can be led by nurses who are specialized in neurosurgery by leading a follow up after discharge either by telephone or by face-to-face interactions.”

The top three winners were all NSERC-supported projects, while Victoria McNab’s Natural Language Processing Chatbot also received support through IRAP.