Spark Design Club

Frosh Week - Spark participated in this past year's Frosh week. The Spark Frosh Olympiks' two-person hanging challenge, was displayed outside Sandford Fleming during Frosh orientation week. In this interactive game, two participants hung from a horizontal bar that could freely rotate, with the goal of rotating the bar to get the other person to lose grip. This contest fosters a spirit of camaraderie and healthy competition. By engaging in such interactive events, new students are encouraged to step out of their comfort zones, facilitating the formation of new friendships and easing the transition into the academic community.

Soldering Workshop - Spark’s soldering workshop, where 36 participants built a two-player Pong game by assembling and soldering custom PCBs, had a strong positive impact on engineering students by providing hands-on learning. For many students, this was their first exposure to soldering and working with electronic components. By linking core engineering skills such as circuit assembly, component identification, and debugging, the workshop was educational in many aspects and sparked curiosity in electronics and embedded systems. It also encouraged collaboration and peer learning, creating a welcoming space for students of all experience levels to explore foundational skills in a low-pressure, enjoyable environment.

New Displays - Over the 2024-2025 school year, 20+ Spark members prototyped and designed two displays: Smart Chess, a self-moving chessboard using a magnet and gantry system, and Dino Jump, a holographic recreation of the offline browser Dino game. These projects are scheduled for construction over the summer, with Spark members meeting weekly to apply their electrical and mechanical design skills, as well as their creativity, to building these complex machines. The process offers hands-on opportunities for mentorship, CAD design, exposure to manufacturing technologies, and power tools training. In parallel, retrofits of past projects are underway and will be showcased at upcoming summer events. Once completed, we plan on showcasing these displays in UofT engineering buildings as we currently are with our older projects located in Myhal.