Some Canadian HistoryIn Two Parts

PEngineering Education - the BeginningsPThe Millennium Project

The Origins of Engineering Education in Canada

With Ray Findlay

King's College, New Brunswick 1854

* First engineering program

* Civil Engineering

* 26 students enrolled

Dating from 1829, this remains the oldest functional university building in Canada

The following year, 1855, Sir John William Dawson, newly appointed Principal of McGill University announced an engineering program. The lectures were given by Thomas Keefer, one of Canada's great builders.

The first electrical engineering program in Canada was also given at McGill - in 1890. Prior to that time electrical engineering had been included in mechanical engineering programs.

The shot below is of the electrical machines lab at the University of New Brunswick about the turn of the century. The two machines in the foreground are dc machines donated to UNB about 1892 by the Canadian General Electric Company.

The 32 Volt dc machine used in the lab is still an object of curiosity at UNB. This shot shows the restored machine sitting in splendour in a small room at the university, set aside as a museum.

The Annual Fall Survey Camp - UNB -1911

A Rough looking bunch !

We presume the guns were to guard against bears, or, perhaps to catch a rabbit for the pot!

The camp was required for all engineers, including electricals!

The cook and his helper. Word has it that students ate very well! Rabbit, chicken, grouse, bear steak....

They transported the piano to the site every year by rail!

Meanwhile the electrical industry moved in.

The Canadian General Electric plant ca 1890, inPeterborough, Ontario. At the time this was wilderness territory.

The CGE plant in the early years.

The Royal Electric Company was among the earliest in Canada.

This shows the Montreal plant. The company was incorporated in 1884.

Westinghouse Electric came to Canada somewhat later, incorporating in 1902, about the date of this photo.

The machine shop, with banks of lathes and electric lighting.

Westinghouse produced the largest generator then attempted in 1922, at 45,000 V and 55,000 HP.

The first space arm, dubbed the Shuttle Remote Positioning System, or Canadarm for short, was signed over to NASA in 1981.

This shot shows the completion of the project, actually started in 1974 at the request of the US Government.

The Canadarm

View from the shuttle.

Total weight of approximately 431 kg,Manoeuvres payloads of up to 14,515 kg at a rate of .06 m/s Maximum contingency operation payload weight of 265,810 kg.6 degrees of freedom

The Sudbury Neutrino Obstervatory

2000 m underground near Sudbury in the Canadian shield, a new neutrino observatory is poised to begin its detection of neutrino's from space.

12 m diameter acrylic vessel to hold 1000 tonnes of heavy water as a sensor for the system.

The stainless steel geodesic structure contains 9600 light sensors

Reginald Aubrey Fessenden

On 23 December 1900 Fessenden made the first human voice transmission by wireless.

"One, two, three, four. Is it snowing where you are Mr. Thiessen? If it is, telegraph back and let me know."

The historic event occurred at Cob Point Maryland. Shown are the twin towers at the Cob Point facility.

Fessenden's 125 m transmission tower at Brant Rock, Mass where he made his historic Christmas broadcast on 24 December 1906 to ships at sea.

He played "Oh Holy Night," on his violin. Then he played a recording of Handel's Largo, and delivered a Christmas speach.

Inside the Brant Rock Lab.

The components of a turn-of-the century spark gap alternator

a) Diagramatic cross section

b) Armature winding

c) One half of the completed armature

d) The complete system

* Edward (Ted) Samuel Rogers

The famous 15S, the world's first alternating current simple rectifier tube.

This development enabled radio power supply from a 110 V household supply, eliminating the need for an antenna in the process.

Ted Rogers was only 24 when he developed the 15S in 1924.

The following year he developed the first all electric radio.

Rogers' batteryless radios were put on the market in Canada in September, 1925. The ad is from November 1925.

Batteryless radios were offered in the USA in May, 1926, and the following year in Europe.

Radar: The Tizard Mission

CANDU

ZEEP was the forerunner of the CANDU reactor

CANDU Power plant at Point Lepreau, New Brunswick

Kitimat/Kemano Power Development

Alcan smelter

Kitimat, BC

The Kemano River Valley

Interior of the Kemano powerhouse, built some 427 metres inside the base of Mt. DuBose in a huge, blastedcavern. Kemano produces a total of 896 MW of power from its eight generators.

Began supplying power to the Alcan plant in Kitimat in 1954.

The Ballard Fuel Cell

The first transmission magnetic electron microscope was built by two graduate students, James Hillier and Albert Prebus at the University of Toronto in April of 1938, under the direction of the Department Chairman, Professor E.F. Burton.

Prebus (left) and Hillier (right) with their microscope in 1938

In 1950, John Hopps, P. Eng., working with Dr. William Bigelow and Dr. John Callaghan found that applying a gentle electrical stimulus to the heart would not only duplicate the normal body nerve stimulation but it would also not cause any harm to the heart muscle. In addition, this technique would start a stopped heart and increase or decrease the heart rate, as required.

John Alexander Hopps and the Pacemaker

Hopps, working with the two surgeons, developed the first pacemaker in 1950. It was large (about 30 cm long, and several centimetres high and wide), the pulses were generated by vacuum tubes and the entire unit was powered by 60 Hz household current.

IMAX, the brainchild of Graeme Ferguson, Roman Kroitor, Robert Kerr and Bill Shaw premiered in 1970 at EXPO >70 in Osaka Japan with the film" Tiger Child.

Nestor Burtnyk and Marceli Wein, are recognized as Fathers of Computer Animation Technology in Canada. Shown at the NRC computer graphics facility is Burtnyk.

The technique of key-frame animation used in the NRC system involves the creation by the animator of isolated frames at key intervals during a sequence, with the in-between frames to be computed by interpolation. Since the pictorial content of successive key frames need not bear any particular relation to one another, a wide variety of transformations is easily produced.

Shown are selected key frames of a walk sequence. There are five key frames per cycle of the walk. Each key frame consists of three cells.

"Telidon", a second generation videotex system, was invented at the Communications Research Centre, the research arm of the federal Department of Communications. Telidon placed Canada as a world leader in two-way TV technology, and offered the potential to revolutionize telecommunications in Canada.

Telidon

Although videotex was born in Europe, Canada was very muchinterested in the technology and undertook to further improve it, resulting in Telidon, a second generation videotex system.

Time reckoning and the Atomic Clock

Beginning with Sir Sandford Fleming, inventor of the international system of datelines, Canadians have always been preoccupied with time reckoning.

Since its construction in 1973, Cs V has functioned experimentally as a frequency standard, but the changeover to continuous operation will make it the most accurate and stable clock in the world.

The "atomic" clock is so named, not because it is powered by atomic energy, but because certain fundamental properties of the atom are used to provide a definition of time.

The Crash Position Indicator

The Crash Position Indicator is a unique system for locating a downed plane. Since the inception of the CPI, some 25 years ago, many people involved in plane crashes, especially in the far North and in remote areas of the world, owe their lives to it.

Elizabeth "Elsie" MacGill (1905-1980) First female electrical engineer in Canada; first aeronautical engineer in North America; probably the only woman to design an entire aircraft, the "Maple Leaf".