Partner: Atlantic Aqua Farms

Atlantic Aqua Farms, a Canadian shellfish company, seeks to minimize workplace safety hazards and reduce manual tasks performed onboard their mussel harvesting vessels. Currently, offshore fishermen engage in strenuous overhead cutting and lifting activities on slippery surfaces, leaving them vulnerable to head injuries. The proposed solution must improve workplace safety and reduce manual labor requirements, without compromising the efficiency of the current mussel harvesting operations.

Student Team: Abby Chapman, Huy Nguyen, Malcolm MacDonald

Partner: Bayside Builders

The residential construction industry is facing a decline in skilled laborers, and housing prices are increasing while the demand for said workers is increasing. The current methodology of platform frame construction on PEI is not economically sustainable. To address these issues, there is a growing need to transition toward offsite framing methods that enhance efficiency, lower the skill requirements for entry-level workers, and minimize the physical demands of framing tasks. In response, the team proposes the development of a specialized workbench tailored to streamline the framing process, enabling entry-level workers to achieve professional-grade results while supporting the industry's demand for economically feasible and efficient construction practices.

Student Team: Khaleel Dalbah, Goutham Krishna, Samuel George Ellis, Hope Kuku

Partner: Construction Association of PEI 

With a projected workforce shortage of 1000 construction workers over the next decade in Prince Edward Island’s construction industry, the Construction Association of PEI (CAPEI) seeks an innovative solution to allow a single tradesperson rather than two people to install drywall. The solution should allow one person to safely install drywall without causing strain or overexertion. The device should also be simple, efficient, easy to use, adjustable, and sustainable, and installation time should be reduced.

Student Team: Elijah Dodd, Deborah Areoye, Emmanuel Filani, Lilly Orielly

Partner: Cardigan Feed

Cardigan Feed, a locally owned and operated company based out of Prince Edward Island, is seeking an innovative and beneficial method of recycling both bailage and bunker silage plastics. The idea must help relieve the farmer’s burden of sorting, cleaning, and transporting recyclable agricultural plastics. The proposed solution must resolve the issue of silage recycling by implementing a simple solution, allowing the farmers to recycle the agricultural plastics in a convenient way.

Student Team: Hilary Dobbin, Holden Bradley, Tori Jayne Chapman, Tyler Worth

Partner: Health PEI

Medical practitioners around PEI currently use an analog otoscope to examine patients’ ears, requiring hands-on experience and understanding of ear conditions. Health PEI is exploring a smartphone attachment to an otoscope, allowing medical practitioners to accurately capture images of the ear to train medical students efficiently. This solution reduces the need to purchase expensive digital otoscopes and has many educational applications.

Student Team: Jimmy Hulton, Morgan McLean, Thomas Paul Magday

Partner: Jennifer Neill

Jennifer Neil, on behalf of Lennox Island School, is looking for a solution to move water from a stream to the school’s campsite. The stationary, inexpensive design must operate through dense dogwood and be storable for the Winter. It must transport at least six liters of water at a time and be operable and safe for anyone regardless of age.

Student Team: Tiffany Luna, Rehnuma Islam, Mahmoud Mohammad

Partner: Lennox Island First Nation 

Removing biofouling from oyster lines should be as quick and efficient as possible for the Lennox Island First Nations Shellfish Hatchery. Currently, technicians are cleaning the lines by hand, which is slow and physically tiring. The solution should be a mechanism, device or method integrated within the cage-flipping process that removes biofouling from the lines, decreasing time and labour demands.

Student Team: Yousef Ahmed, Temiloluwa Adisa, Olamide Ezekiel Akinyemi, Ethan Arsenault-Saunders, Ellen Fraser

Partner: The National Research Council of Canada

The National Research Council of Canada (NRC) requested the design of the starting framework of a smart baffle bioreactor system. The NRC intends to have a baffle that has a higher functionality than traditional industry standard baffles. Currently, traditional baffles serve the sole purpose of disrupting vortices but can have a higher upside potential by innovating the already existing design. The smart baffle system must be designed to accommodate the future integration of sensors to measure oxygen, pH, and temperature to optimize the fermentation process.

Student Team: Syed Imran Ali, Luke Jennings, Richard Hetherington, Ryan Leard

Partner: PEI Potters Studio 

The PEI Potters Studio, a non-profit organization in Victoria Park, PEI, has been dedicated to offering pottery classes to the public since 1997 and recycles clay scraps into reusable material. However, their current clay reclaiming process is labour-intensive, taking multiple weeks to complete, which limits the studio to reclaiming only four times a year. This project aims to design a proof of concept to improve specific reclaiming stages – mixing, wedging/pug milling, and bagging – to make the process less strenuous/time-consuming.

Student Team: Kai Spence, Lauren Cox, Odunayo Haruna, Kelenna Udo

Partner: Dickie Baxter Taproom & Bistro

The Dickie Baxter Taproom & Bistro restaurant in Canning, Nova Scotia, is experiencing issues with high noise levels, which lead to an unpleasant dining experience for guests. The current noise levels are around 75-78 dB, significantly above the ideal range for a pleasant dining atmosphere, which is typically around 50 dB. The excess noise is caused by various factors, including the restaurant's open layout, hard surfaces (such as concrete floors and walls), and a high volume of conversations and kitchen sounds.

Student Team: Mohammed Idrees Mahmood, Nathan Belanger, Huda Osman, Peter Benedict Arackal