Last month, the Geomatics Club out of Lassonde School of Engineering sent two teams comprised of third-year and fourth-year students to Waterloo to compete in the National Geomatics Competition (NGC). The competition is a student-led consulting engineering competition based in the field of geomatics with a focus to bring together students and industry representatives from across Canada.
Over the course of a weekend, the teams were tasked with developing a light rail transit (LRT) plan for the City of Guelph. Lassonde’s third-year team won the Innovation Award for their idea which incorporated an existing, abandoned rail right-of-way through the downtown core, in order to minimize impact on the existing city while providing a more scenic yet efficient route upon completion.
In addition to the project’s out-of-the-box creativity, environmental impact was also a key consideration with proposals including minimal construction near protected areas.
Both teams represented Lassonde well, presenting depth of knowledge and masterful research which combined aerial imagery, future expansion reports, existing transit systems and GIS datasets from numerous sources.
The teams are:
- Third-year team: Nathan Stachow, Felipe Gonzalez and Daniela Krcmar,
- Fourth-year team: Evan Rueb, Prabhnoor Singh Chhabra and Andrew Robertson.