It’s hard to believe that I have already done half of my degree in Electrical Engineering at Laval University! Time flies so fast! I can easily remember my first day like it was yesterday. Looking back on those two years, I am proud of what I have accomplished. I am also grateful for all the wonderful people I met there that became my friends. An activity I particularly appreciated this semester was to help another Schulich Leader of Laval University to pursue her project. So I helped her to distribute chocolates on Valentine’s Day to homeless people eating at a soup kitchen named Lauberivière in Quebec City. 

Throughout the semester, I did an amazing project in which I was in a team of six members including me. We made a barcode scanner out of basic material like a laser, mirrors, etc. We worked on the hardware part as much as on software part. We had to conceive a printed circuit board with a photodetector and an amplifier on it to detect the light from the reflection of the laser on a barcode. The scanner was working for all the CUP code contained in our giant database. We were even able to give the products descriptions and prices. It was so interesting to do something largely used that seems so basic at first, but that turns out to be more difficult than expected!

Now that the semester is over, all my colleagues and I from the Laval University Aerospace Group are working very hard to get ready for the 2016 Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition held in Green River, Utah. It will be my second year participating to this awesome competition. I am so excited to go there this year too because it means a lot for our team. We worked hard all the past year to build a new rocket with better electronics on it and a very interesting payload. I am confident that our rocket will give a great performance among all our competitors from around the world. At the end of the summer, I will do another post with our results, but if you want to, you can also follow us on Facebook. 

Finally, I also started my internship in Electrical Engineering for Agnico Eagle Mines Limited at LaRonde Division and so far so good. I am really happy to work on power electronics for this amazing company. They are taking care of their employees and organize a lot of activities helping everyone to get together. It is like a huge family.

Enjoy your summer and do not hesitate to take all the opportunities life offers you!

 

Vincent Rocheleau

2014 Schulich Leader in Electrical Engineering at Laval University