Electrical engineering students Nurchi Guseynov and Drew Lamoureux work on a circuit board for a theremin—an obscure electrical musical instrument. It will be part of an engineering students’ technical display at the Telus World of Science Saturday Jan. 14 from 12 noon – 5 p.m. The event is opened to the public.

Edmonton—U of A Engineering students typically spend their time in classes, learning. This weekend they will be doing the teaching, hosting displays at the Telus World of Science from 12 noon – 5 p.m. Saturday Jan 14.

Students from each of the four departments in the Faculty of Engineering—civil and environmental engineering, electrical and computer engineering, chemical and materials engineering and mechanical engineering will hold demonstrations about their specific engineering disciplines.

And members of technical clubs from the faculty, such as the Autonomous Robotic Vehicle Project and the new EcoCar team, will be on hand to show off their team projects, explain about the engineering behind them and talk about what it’s like to compete at the national and international levels.

“The idea is to showcase for the public what the different disciplines in engineering do,” said Kelsey Kennedy-LeBlanc, who is co-ordinating the event for the Engineering Students’ Society.

An electrical engineering student, Kennedy-LeBlanc says this is the first time technical clubs like EcoCar, which is designing and building a green car for international competitions, will be taking part in the technical display.

“We’re hoping that this year we will get more people out to see the displays—we want the displays to be fun for kids, but it’s also a good event for first-year engineering students to attend too, so they can learn a little more about the different disciplines,” he said.

In preparation for the event, electrical engineering students this year are busy building a theremin as part of their display.  Fourth-year electrical engineering students Nurchi Guseynov and Drew Lamoureux were busy Tuesday building a circuit board for a theremin—an obscure electrical musical instrument. The instrument consists of two antennas that detect the proximity of a player’s hands, which manipulate volume and pitch.

The instrument is somewhat complex and is, according to Guseynov, precursor technology to modern-day RF signaling devices—such as chipped debit and credit cards. But there’s another reason they decided to build a theremin as a showcase project.

“We chose this project because kids will be able to come up and play with it,” said Lamoureux.