While trudging through the snow from the back parking lots of Algonquin, most people don’t think about the volume of the snow and its salt concentration.
Except for Brittanny Belanger.
Belanger is a civil engineering technology student working on a project that uses the Leica Scan Station P20 from the new Construction Research Centre to measure the volume of the snow pile in Algonquin’s back parking lots.
Her group consists of herself, Kyle Campbell and Morgan Champagne.
Each time they use the scanner, they also take samples of the snow to determine the salt content.
The group has done two scans of the snow piles so far which take about four hours each.
“We just use a USB stick when we’re taking our scans,” said Belanger. “It collects our target points and then what I do is I bring it into the cyclone software and then I have to stitch all of these target points together in order to determine the volume of the snow pile.”
The software required to read information from the scanner is also provided by the Construction Research Centre.
Opened at the end of January, this centre has $2.8-million worth of equipment available to engineering, architect and other construction-based programs.
When Belanger’s project is complete, it will eventually be passed on to the grounds and maintenance department so they can find out how much salt to use in the parking lots.
Another group that is using the Construction Research Centre to work on a school project consists of Tony Uguccioni and Dylan Meunier, both third-year electrical engineering technology students.
“We are developing lab experiments for future students that can generate wind and solar energy,” said Uguccioni.
They built a small wind turbine and solar panel to show how both work in different weather conditions.