Engineering student teams

ECOCar team members
ECOCar team members

Engineering student groups are a great way to add more practical design experience to your degree, use your technical skills to reach out and help people, or just meet people and get your mind off studying.

AERO - Aeronautical Engineering Research Organization

UVic AERO is a student organization open to all faculties, made up of people passionate about flight and aircraft. We're always looking for new members, regardless of previous experience, so don't hesitate to contact us if you're interested in getting involved or simply looking for more information.

The primary purpose of the team is to develop strong hands-on design skills in student engineers who are interested in cutting-edge technology. These include mechanical and electrical hardware design, software development, and aircraft systems engineering.

Membership includes students in electrical, mechanical, computer and software engineering, as well as complementary disciplines, such as business and economics. Student members are given the opportunity to use their theoretical knowledge to solve real world challenges.

UVic AERO members also gain experience working as a team in areas of project management, technical writing, project presentation, manufacturing processes and system integration. Membership is voluntary, with no academic credit given. This means that only well-organized students with drive and determination will have the time to devote to the team outside of class.

Over the course of about 9 months, members of AERO design, construct, and test an autonomous aircraft to be used in a national student competition. A lot of work goes into this project; if you want to find out exactly what you can learn as part of AERO visit the AERO website.

AUVic - Autonomous Underwater Vehicles Group

AUVic is a student-run group open to anyone interested in Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV) and underwater technology.

AUVic is an entirely student focused endeavor based on innovation, excellence and professionalism. The combination of leading edge technology and our award winning concepts has made AUVic highly regarded within the industry. Under this initiative, students and faculty work cohesively to gain a unique applied experience with high-tech instrumentation. The collaboration creates interesting ideas and produces next generation concepts.

It is this ideology that has made AUVic the most comprehensive and technologically advanced program of its kind.

EcoCar - UVic Green Vehicle Research Team

EcoCAR: The NeXt Challenge is a three-year collegiate advanced vehicle technology engineering competition established by the United States Department of Energy (DOE) and General Motors (GM), and is being managed by Argonne National Laboratory. The competition challenges 16 universities across North America to reduce the environmental impact of vehicles by minimizing the vehicle’s fuel consumption and reducing its emissions while retaining the vehicle’s performance, safety and consumer appeal. Students use a real-world engineering process to design and integrate their advanced technology solutions into a GM-donated vehicle.

Students are designing and building advanced propulsion solutions that are based on vehicle categories from the California Air Resources Board (CARB) zero emissions vehicle (ZEV) regulations. They explore a variety of cutting-edge clean vehicle solutions, including full-function electric, range-extended electric, hybrid, plug-in hybrid and fuel cell technologies. In addition, students will incorporate lightweight materials into the vehicles, improve aerodynamics and utilize alternative fuels such as ethanol, biodiesel and hydrogen.

Teams are following a real-world approach modeled after GM’s global vehicle development process (GVDP), giving students valuable experience in real-world engineering practices, resource allocation and meeting deliverables. While previous student engineering competitions focused primarily on hardware modifications, EcoCAR includes a unique focus on modeling and simulation, as well as subsystem development and testing.


ECOSat - UVic Satelite Design Team

ECOSat, competing in the Canadian Satellite Design Competition put on by Geocentrix. We will be measuring coastal and inland water turbidity using a sensitive camera capable of a 50m spatial resolution. This is the first satellite to undertake such a mission. Water turbidity is useful to geographers and climatologists as it indicates soil erosion and rainfall patterns.

We are always looking for new members and sponsors. Please feel free to contact us with any questions about the project or getting involved in this unique competition.

ESS - Engineering Students' Society

The ESS Executive are a group of people that help to improve the quality of UVic Engineering life outside of classes.

The positions are completely voluntary, and each Exec spends approximately 5-10 hours per week involved in organizing, developing, and communicating ESS events and services.

The length that an Exec may hold a position may not exceed 16 months (2 school terms and 2 co-op terms)﻿

FormulaSAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) Design and Competition Team

The UVic Formula SAE team is a group of UVic engineering, business and computer science students that come together to design, fabricate and build an open wheel race car for the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Formula SAE colligate design competition every year.

With competitions all over the world and with almost every major university manning a team, Formula SAE is one of the world's largest engineering collegiate competitions. It is supported by Ford, General Motors, Daimler-Chrysler and other large corporations.