Meet Alex, a fourth-year Environmental Engineering student with a quirky sense of humor. Growing up in a small town, Alex often spent weekends tinkering with old machinery, igniting a passion for sustainable design. Now at Waterloo, Alex frequently finds themselves diving into the complexities of renewable energy systems, but their friends still joke that they have a warm spot in their heart for "the furnace" — the nickname given to their unapologetically retro heating system in their on-campus apartment.