1. Accept your Offer of Residence Accommodation

2. Keep an eye out for your Registration Information

Connect with Carleton

There are a number of ways you can connect with Carleton over the next few weeks and throughout the summer. Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact us (Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.) by phone at 613-520-3663 or toll-free at 1-888-354-4414 or by email at: liaison@carleton.ca. Representatives from the Undergraduate Recruitment Office are also available online for live one-on-one chats on Wednesdays from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Feel free to call, email or chat with us during our extended office hours (8:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.) on May 31, 2012.

For those who have yet to visit the Carleton campus, we encourage you to come for a tour. Please note, for those students attending a tour on Saturday, May 26, a Carleton Recruitment Officer will be available from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. in the Tour Centre (209 Robertson Hall) to answer any remaining questions you may have.

We look forward to hearing from you!

As a Carleton University Tour Guide, this time of year I talk to many students who are at the important decision making point of which university to attend and what program to choose. Since I am involved in three different programs at Carleton, I thought I would share some of my thoughts on why I chose each program. Of course, this is just my personal perspective. If you have any specific questions about the programs, it’s a really good idea to give the Undergraduate Recruitment Office or the specific department a call. They will definitely be able to answer any questions that you might have!

Journalism/Communications

I started out my time here at Carleton in the Journalism program. I am so glad that I took that year of Journalism because it really helped me figure out what direction I wanted my education to move in. When students ask me why I made the switch from Journalism to Communication Studies, I tell them that it was a personal preference. I found that the Journalism program was amazing, I learned so much. For me personally, however, I came to realize that my passion really lay in other areas of communication such as public relations. I found that the Communication Studies program was better suited to explore these interests. Within the Communication Studies program, I also liked that further along in my studies I had the option to choose a concentration. I eventually chose the concentration: Image, Politics, and Persuasion. The professors in both programs are extremely dedicated and thorough in their instruction.

• Find out more about the Journalism and Communication Studies programs at Carleton.

Human Rights

As part of my electives in first year, I took an Introduction to Human Rights course and fell in love with the subject from day one! As such, I decided to add Human Rights as a second major. The professors in the Human Rights program are very engaging and bring so many different perspectives and experiences to their teachings. Each Human Rights class I have taken at Carleton has challenged me and truly contributed to my personal growth and development as a human being. I have met so many amazing people through the Human Rights program at Carleton – from guest lecturers to other students in my classes. I find the program fosters a close and very supportive community of people, who share a passion for the subject as well as diverse experiences and opinions. If you are considering a major in Human Rights, or just taking the course as an elective, I would definitely urge you to give it a try!

• Find out more about the Human Rights program at Carleton.

Sexuality Studies

I also decided to add a minor in Sexuality Studies. For me, Sexuality Studies fits very nicely with my Human Rights major. Once again, the Sexuality Studies program is a made up of a close community of supportive staff and students who are all dedicated to expanding their knowledge on the topics of gender and sexuality. What I value most about my time in the Sexuality Studies program is how it has taught me to think critically and how much I have learned from other people’s knowledge and experiences.

• Find out more about Sexuality Studies at Carleton.

When it comes time to make the decision about what to study at university, keep in mind that it’s not the end of the world if your interests change. You can see that I was able to slightly shift my studies into new and different areas and you definitely can too! If you are a little confused about what major you want to choose, try to take electives in subjects that interest you. This way you have the foundation courses that you need to explore those subjects further in your later years.

Good luck with your decisions everyone!

• You can now explore the Carleton campus on the go with new interactive maps and tours. Take any one of our five program-specific tours or visit our 25 interactive buildings and view building descriptions, photos and videos. Visitors to Carleton can also use the ‘Find Me’ GPS feature to pinpoint their location as they tour the campus.
• Introduce yourself to our talented mascot, Rodney the Raven! In the fun new feature, ‘Moves Like Rodney’, you can shake your device to make Rodney shake his tail feathers with some dance moves!

Of course, you can still make use of the core features of the app and explore our programs, learn more about the application process, catch up with our CU Bloggers, register for events or book a tour.

This latest release of the Carleton Admissions app is available now for Apple and Android devices.

• Full-time Ontario high school students
• All other Canadian high school students
• International Baccalaureate Students
• British based high school system students
• For all other applicants, please contact Admissions Services.

For more information, please visit our events webpage. If you would like to learn more about our programs and applying to Carleton, please stop by to see us! We will be happy to answer any of your questions.

As promised, I’ve come back to talk about the hybrid FSAE racecar. Great progress has been made since my last post and the team is ready for the competition. A couple of weeks ago we unveiled the car to the public and our sponsors. Let me tell you, the car looked great! Congratulations to all those who’ve devoted countless hours to its creation.

At first I helped out with machining the wheel centers and the installation of instruments and sensors. I spent a weekend observing the wheels being machined and it was very interesting to see. Much time and preparation goes into building such a nice product. The wheel centers are made of aluminum and machined in a CNC mill. Thankfully, a local company was generous enough to donate their time to machine the wheels for us.

I’ve included a picture demonstrating the initial machining of a solid piece of aluminum as well as one of a completed side of our wheel center. To complete the wheel center, the machinist flipped the block, repositioned his machine and continued machining the other side. After being black anodized, the wheel centers look great and we can’t wait to display them on our car in the competition.

What impressed me the most was the level of accuracy that can be obtained from modern milling tools. The machines we used can be as accurate as a thousandth of an inch. To give you an idea of how small that is, if you were to cut the thickness of your nail in 40 pieces, one piece would be a thousandth of an inch!

When I initially joined the team, I my intention was to help out anybody who required assistance. As time progressed, my attention became focused on composite bodywork. This was such a great learning experience!

The week before the unveiling was very stressful. The car had to look immaculate and the bodywork still needed to be finished. In the rush to complete the bodywork for the unveiling, I helped to prepare the molds and lay down the composites.

To make nice looking parts, the molds had to be sanded smooth and molded perfectly. Any imperfection on the mold would show on the fiberglass or carbon fiber. On our car, we chose to have a carbon fiber nose cone for strength and a fiberglass body to reduce cost. After the mold was ready, the fiber was then laid in the mold and covered with a film of plastic. The part was then vacuumed bagged and the resin was drawn into the bag to soak into the cloth. After 8 hours, the part was finally dry – voila! With a little sanding and buffing it was then ready for painting.

The picture to the left shows the resin being drawn in the bag by the vacuum to soak the cloth. When dry, the resin and cloth were fused together to become the finished product.

Well, I think I’ve wrote enough for today, so I’ll wrap this up by wishing you a great summer!

Till next time.

Carl

I still remember the first day of my first year as a Carleton student. I had all these queasy feelings in my stomach – I didn’t have very many friends with me at Carleton, the campus was much larger than my high school and there were tons of people everywhere. On top of all that, I also had  some not-so-positive pre-conceived notions of what university would be like. But I knew that I wasn’t alone and that many of us ‘first years’ were feeling the same way. I started to take advantage of the support services available for students transitioning from high school to university. Over time, I grew to love the campus and its busyness and I quickly made lots of new friends and came to realize that my professors weren’t monsters (in fact they were all very approachable and supportive). I came to love everything about Carleton. However, things really began to change for me when I started to get involved. In high school, getting involved in clubs and activities was what defined me. I hoped that I would have the same opportunities to get involved at university. And I did! I got involved as much as I could and I am so, so, so glad that I did. I got to meet so many wonderful people through different offices and clubs and I got to participate and help out with many initiatives around campus. It was things like these that made me excited about getting up in the morning!

I truly think I would have been in a very different place right now if I hadn’t come to Carleton. Through the many opportunities I was given, the people I met and the many things that I learned along the way, Carleton helped me grow into the person I am today. Carleton has been an integral part of my success thus far and I know it will continue to be in the future. It really is bittersweet to be graduating, part of me wishes I could stay here forever. At the same time, I’m very excited about what the future holds for me. I’m excited to take all of the valuable things I have learned on this journey and apply them in the ‘real world’. Carleton has given me so much and I can’t wait to give it all back!

Thank you to everyone who has been there and supported me from day one – my family, especially my parents, my close friends and all of my professors. I couldn’t have done it without you.

It’s the end of the year again! It’s crazy to think that two years ago I had no idea what it was like to be a university student, nonetheless an Industrial Design student at Carleton University. As an Industrial Design student, you have to live, breathe, think and talk design. I just finished my second year of classes here at Carleton and it’s been a good year – a really good year! That’s not to say there weren’t quite a few late nights, long hours spent on projects and a little bit of stress here and there. But, it was definitely worth it! In between our busy school life, my classmates and I had fun hanging out with each other and taking much needed breaks from school work.

Some say that second year is one of the most crucial years of schooling in the Industrial Design program here at Carleton. We went from not knowing anything at all in Solidworks (a 3D CAD program) to being able to recreate an exact replica of a tape measure and modelling an entire LEGO set using the program. In our Mass Production class, we learned all about the different types of plastics and the ways of making something out of plastic as well as metals and all of their associated processes. We also learned about the importance of sketching and thinking while you sketch, as well as about prototype models and how important they are in getting a feel for your initial product. Something will always look and feel different between the beautiful computer rendering of a design and the actual final product. The prototype helps you as the designer to visualize whether or not you have developed a viable design solution.

Industrial Design is really about solving a problem, whether it be through better material use, interface design, shape, colour, graphics etc. But it all boils down to developing an aesthetically pleasing solution to a problem. A car isn’t just all the mechanical parts and the engine that makes it run. The car also has beautiful bodywork that contains the interior mechanics. In this blog entry I would like to share some of the cool projects we worked on this semester.

A really interesting project we did this semester was a helmet design project. We were tasked with finding a target market, researching current market solutions, sketching a proposed design, and creating a final appearance model sculpted out of clay. The final product was not a functional design, but it was true to the final look, shape, size, and colour. This was also our first major group project involving design. It was really fun to be able to bounce design ideas off each other and work together to come up with innovative solutions to issues that arose throughout the project. Our group decided to design a rock climbing helmet that was gender neutral. Our target market was a younger, outgoing, amateur rock climbing enthusiast who may have a ponytail that needs to be accommodated by our helmet. The solution to this problem was to incorporate a backwards looking cap motif. This allowed us to curve the back brim up and over the ponytail allowing greater convenience and ease for climbers who sport ponytails.

Another project we worked on for our Mass Production class was a sheet metal enclosure design. We were given a PCB (circuit board) that our box had to accommodate as well as the minimum amount of ventilation required, screen size and button holes. We did some initial drawings of what we wanted the box to look like, and then drew it up in Solidworks. We then proceeded to print out dimensioned drawings with all the pertinent information required. Next, we had to transfer the drawings onto the sheet metal – we used aluminum because it’s relatively soft and very light weight – before milling out the holes and overall shape. After that was complete, we bent the sides up to create the final box shape. This was a very nerve wracking process because one mistake on the finger brake (the machine that folds the sheet metal) would mean we would have to go all the way back to transferring, milling, and finishing before we attempted folding again. I was very pleased with the way our box turned out. It gave me and my partner a greater understanding of how to design with sheet metal including the drawbacks, advantages and limitations of the material and processes.

The final project I would like to discuss is the display stand project for our studio class. The task was to design a display stand using a metal pole and an aluminum extrusion called Octanorm as the core structure. We were given a budget of $300 for our display. It had to showcase our first two studio projects, our water bottle and helmet designs. The display also had to be transportable in a vehicle, stable, eye catching and use materials in an innovative way. During initial sketching I had no idea where to start or how this design was going to look. One of my sketches ended up looking kind of like a robot or human-like figure. I figured that it was definitely eye catching, pretty stable, and would display my projects quite effectively – the water bottle could be displayed on one arm and the helmet on the other. With this concept in mind, I went to work using Google Sketchup to prototype some designs. Once I was satisfied with my design, I took it into Keyshot and rendered it. The photo you see is a rendering of my display stand in a fictional setting with me ‘Photoshopped’ in beside it in order to show the scale of the project. We also had to build a ‘desktop model’ which was a 1/10^th scale model of our display stand. The model came out to about seven inches high. We used balsa wood painted silver to simulate the aluminum post along with other materials and paint in order to recreate our design at 1/10^th the scale.

That’s a quick update on the final semester of my second year in the Industrial Design program at Carleton. I want to wish you all a happy summer and I’ll see you again in the fall!

Later,

Chad

During the Fall/Winter 2012-2013 academic year I’ll be taking courses in Linguistics, Philosophy and Computer Science. This summer I will be gardening and learning to program in Python (a hybrid AI language).

See you all in the quad or at the beach, whichever comes first!