2000-01-27. MUN Gazette, vol. 32, no. 11

              4§ Memorial
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Registration No. 551988
Volume 32 Number 11
A MEMORIAL UNIVERSITY OF NEWFOUNDLAND PUBLICATION
January 27, 2000
Time after time
By Susen Johnson
When Andy Fisher got the news
just before Christmas, he
smelled opportunity. CTV's
morning news program Canada AM had
called the engineering faculty just as exams
were ending and invited it to participate in
a live New Year's Eve telecast at
Greensleeves pub on George Street. They
wanted MUN's student engineers to construct a time capsule - a container that
would last for 100 years, until Jan. 1, 2100.
Were they up to the challenge?
The coordinator of the Manufacturing
Technology Centre, Mr. Fisher saw
an opportunity to give students hands-on
experience and a chance to showcase the
school's talent in a national forum.
"We always like a challenge," he said.
"And if we get a chance to highlight the
capabilities of students while we're at it,
then that's always a positive thing.''
Student engineers Dave Bursey and
Adam Reid were enlisted for the project,
and began researching ideas for their container on the Internet, but scant information
from the client and limited resources -
financial and otherwise - 'chewed up' more
extravagant plans.
With less than two weeks to go and the
clock ticking, the students were off and running.
"It was a bit rushed," Mr. Bursey admit-
, "They just had a whole list of things
ley wanted to put in it. They said 'some-
ftiing from The Museum of Civilization and
something from The Ontario Science Centre'. Of course, we had no idea how big
tee objects were going to be."
Mr. Reid adds, "Two weeks is pretty
short but it is a 'real-world' problem ... you
have a deadline, you have constraints, and
you have a product that has to be finalized.
It was pretty exciting."
As Mr. Fisher explains, these kinds of
design challenges are crucial to engineering
education.
"It gets students into this idea that as soon
as you get out of here and you get away from
a textbook, things will be vague, and your
job is to bring clarity to the problems."
Mr. Bursey and Mr. Reid's first goal was
to find the materials they needed, scrounging around the labs for whatever was left
over from other projects. Finding a big sheet
of aluminum in one of the labs over the holidays was a stroke of luck, and, with welding
services donated by Technical Services, the
students created a four-foot tall aluminum
cylinder with a 'pie pan' top, two handles,
and logo placards.
When the time came to deliver the big
shiny can, the client was very pleased - and
so were the engineers.
"They seemed amazed at it," Mr. Reid
said.
Mr. Bursey agreed, "They were really
impressed with it; it was bigger than they
expected it to be."
During the telecast, Canada AM's host
Jeff Hutcheson filled the capsule almost to
the lid with items like an autographed Wayne
Gretzky jersey, CDs, a cell phone, a bottle of
beer, a Hudson's Bay blanket, maple syrup, a
basketball, a videotape of the 1972 Canada
Cup match, and some newspapers.
Mr. Bursey and Mr. Reid signed the
underside of the lid just before sealing the
capsule.
Photo by Chris Hammond
Time machine
L-R: Greg Healey, manager of Greensleeves, and engineering students Dave Bursey and Adam Reid.
"That was a last-minute idea," Mr. Reid
said. "We were sitting down looking at it
and we said, 'Hey, we should sign our
names to this.'"
As Mr. Bursey put it, "Everyone kind of
wants to leave a mark behind, and now I
know my name's going to be around for at
least 100 years anyway."
The engineers are pleased that they had
even this small part to play in the big millennial celebrations. But what do they think
will happen on Jan. 1, 2100, when the capsule gets opened?
"We wouldn't want to be the guys who
open it," Mr. Bursey said, laughing.
"Newsprint's pretty acidic, so that could
cause a few reactions," said Mr. Reid. "And
that could be a pretty nasty bottle of beer
when it's opened."
But he's quick to add, "It'd be nice for
our grandkids to open it, if it's still around."
President's Report
in this issue
1 Memorial
Presidents Report
shaping! 4 h»
that shapes
our province
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The 1998-99
Pre sident's
Report appears
in this issue of the
Gazette. The report
covers the academic
period from Sept. 1,
1998, to  Aug.  31,
1999, and the financial
information covers the
fiscal year April  1,
1998, to March 31,
1999. Given the periods covered by this
report, it is the last one
to be issued by Dr.
Arthur May who retired
from the presidency of
Memorial in August
1999.
Auditing your environment
By David Sorensen
Faculty, students and staff are being asked
to participate in a detailed environmental
audit of Memorial's St. John's campus.
The audit will examine Memorial's environmental management
policies and proce-     —
dures with an eye to
compiling a detailed
environmental management plan.
Issues to be examined include indoor air
quality, asbestos management procedures;
PCBs in use and storage, halons and CFC
management, pesticide and herbicide
management, air emissions, ground water contamination, petroleum storage tanks, hazardous
materials and hazardous waste management,
recycling and solid waste disposal.
"The main thrust of the audit is to go out and
look at our buildings and do evaluations of things
'The main thrust of the audit is
to go out and look at our
buildings and do evaluations of
things like indoor air quality
and materials that are used,
and processes in place/'
like indoor air quality and materials that are used,
and processes in place," he said. "Anything that
can impact environmental considerations."
Workers in certain campus buildings have
expressed concern about perceived frequencies
of illnesses of people working in these areas, he
     said.     A     systematic
approach to studying the
workplace environment is
needed to investigate
these concerns.
Air quality concerns
have been expressed by
occupants of the following
buildings: Henrietta Harvey Building, St. John's
College, Arts and Administration Building, Paton
     College, Queen's College,
Physical Education Building, Science Building,
Chemistry/Physics Building, QE II Library,
Thomson Student Centre, Ocean Sciences Centre
and Faculty of Business Administration Building.
see AUDIT, page 2
We can
get along ^