A cross-cohort project was created and implemented as part of the core curriculum for mechanical engineering students. A team of second-year students in “Dynamics” course was grouped with a team of third-year students in “Kinematics and Dynamics of Machines” course where they designed, prototyped and conducted dynamic motion analysis of a pick and place mechanism. Each cohort was tasked to create a sub-mechanism, combining these two mechanisms created the final machine. The teaching and learning activities are defined towards accomplishing four main interrelated objectives: (1) To provide a design challenge to guide students to implement creative potential solutions. (2) To allow second-year and third-year teams to analyze the dynamic motion of their mechanism while considering the design of the other group’s mechanism. (3) To introduce industrial dynamic simulation tools and hands on prototyping skills. (4) To facilitate cross-cohort collaboration within teams with more emphasis on students’ peer exchange of knowledge and experience. With the experience gained from conducting the project, evaluating the students’ reports, and student feedback, several modifications can be implemented in future iterations to allow the students to benefit more from this kind of project structure. This research discusses improvements based on the lessons learned.

of Waterloo and in the biomedical field.She has broad experience in multidisciplinary experimental research and has

Acanthamoeba is a genus of free-living amoebas distributed worldwide. Few studies have explored the interactions between these protozoa and their infecting giant virus, Acanthamoeba polyphaga mimivirus (APMV). Here we show that, once the amoebal encystment is triggered, trophozoites become significantly resistant to APMV. Otherwise, upon infection, APMV is able to interfere with the expression of a serine proteinase related to amoebal encystment and the encystment can no longer be triggered.