Innovation on display: Polytechnique Montréal’s summer expo showcases student tech

Polytechnique Montreal students are showcasing space rockets, driverless electric cars and even a remote-controlled cargo plane at their summer expo.

Nearly 200 Folie Technique Science Summer Camp attendees got to witness the behind the scenes of innovative projects – concepts such as exoskeleton designs, water treatment systems, drones, and robotics.

“It’s a day where we have both of our best world’s colliding, really,” said Maud Cohen, president de Polytenchnique Montréal. “We have this summer camp where we introduce, with Polytechnique, we introduce science and applied science to kids so that we initiate a thought process during their younger years.”

“It’s quite hard and it’s quite physical for us drivers, but it’s amazing to see all that crowd out there,” said Hugo Scuto, driver at Formule Polytechnique Montréal. “All these young guys are thriving in engineering.”

The event involved seven Polytechnique Montréal student teams—Formule Polytechnique Montréal, Avion Cargo, Zénith, Oronos, Héka, PolyStar and Vitalis.

“In Montreal, we’re very lucky because we have three really performing teams in Polytechnique Montreal, in McGill and in ETS,” said Scuto. “It’s common to see one of these three teams on a podium in our competition.” 

“We really want to share a passion with all of those kids,” said Anne Sophie Spiridonakis-Batista, Polytechnique Student. “Show them that anyone can basically work on rockets if you’re passionate enough about it and if you’re willing to put the time in it.”

The exhibition was an opportunity for technical societies to show their latest designs and discuss the progress of their research on a number of large-scale projects.

“Most kids have seen drones, they’ve heard about drones and they’ve maybe played with small drones, but I think nobody has seen such big drones,” said Colin Rousseau, Polytechnique student.   

Youth were able to get a glimpse into what it takes to work on these projects, many of which involve teams of 10-20 people – as the highlight of the event was seeing the high-performance single seater Electric vehicle race around the track.

“I hope they see how engineering can be fun and how we can learn the tools to build and raise these amazing things and even better,” said Hugo Scuto, driver for Formule Polytechnique Montréal.

“It was really inspiring,” said Gesele Felkorn, participant at the Folie Technique Science Summer Camp. “It gave me a sort of vibe that I want to do it in my future. Drive that car and understand how everything goes in it and out.”

Many of the representatives from all seven teams have participated in the summer camp as a youth, now coming full circle as they hope to influence the next batch of future scientists. 

“It’s really cool that we get to present our projects to those students because that’s the moment where they’re so interested,” said Spiridonakis-Batista. “And we can kind of get them to click on rockets. And we love to have passionate students. And without passionate students, well, we’re not going to be able to do anything,”