Student members spend summer promoting sustainability

Benedict Bahner
ASME News Online

As other engineering students whiled away their summers on vacation, Peter Lillehoj spent his time off from school in southern Mexico designing and setting up an irrigation system for a rural village.

Lillehoj and another ASME student member, Cyprienne Crowley, were among the 15 engineering students and professionals who applied their engineering know-how over the summer bringing water, power, and sanitation to some of the world's poorest communities in Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Cyprienne Crowley spent the summer in Dakar, Senegal, finishing the design of the prototype for a low-cost solar oven and planning its production. Crowley is pictured here with several children from the area.

The program, Summer Engineering Experience in Development (SEED), is sponsored by Engineers for a Sustainable World, a nonprofit organization that brings together engineers and scientists to work toward solutions for global poverty.

Lillehoj, a senior at Johns Hopkins University's mechanical engineering department, worked for 10 weeks, from May through August, in the small town of Zimátlan de Alvarez, in Mexico, implementing a farm irrigation system. Working with a local partner organization, Centeotl AC, his team was able to install the hydraulic pump-powered system, which will be able to irrigate two small farms during the country's dry seasons.

The hydraulic pump-powered system that student member Peter Lillehoj helped install will be able to irrigate two small farms in Zimátlan de Alvarez, Mexico.

The irrigation project also gave the team the opportunity to hone a skill that is part of the overall engineering experience — creative problem solving. "With hydraulic pumps, some of the water is wasted through one of the valves," Lillehoj said. "We were able to channel this water into a tank that the community uses to raise fish. Now the town does not have to use an electric pump to pump water into the fish tank."

Lillehoj's group was able to install the pump and have it up and running by the time they left in August.

The other ASME student member, Cyprienne Crowley, spent her summer contributing to an ongoing project in Dakar, Senegal, to promote the development and use of solar ovens in the surrounding community.

Crowley, a 21-year-old senior in mechanical engineering at Cornell University, worked with Abdoulaye Toure, Senegal's expert on solar ovens, to finish the design for prototype of a low-cost solar oven and putting together a plan for mass production of the ovens. In Senegal, women commonly cook on outdoor stoves over wood or charcoal fires. As a result, the region has suffered considerable deforestation from the overuse of wood and the brush fires that the stoves often cause.

The model for the new solar oven is made from recycled roto-molded plastic, insulated with cotton and peanut shells. The oven features ergonomic handles, two reflective panels, and a lid that slides rather than lifts open to minimize heat loss. The ovens, which will be mass-produced next summer by ESW students, will also be affordable. ESW expects them to sell them for a mere $80 apiece.

When he wasn't building the town's new irrigation system, Lillehoj taught English to the town's children.

Lillehoj, who used down time over the summer building a shower for his host family and teaching English classes for the town's children, said he has learned much from his experience in Mexico. Among the lessons he learned was "that patience is a very important skill to have because many times it takes several days to get the proper tools and materials. I also learned that with many projects, it is not going to be a linear process. You have to jump around between certain steps in the design and construction process to reach the final outcome.

"I had an amazing experience," Lillehoj continued. "I loved working in the community and interacting with all of the people. I learned a lot, both engineering-wise and non-engineering-wise. I definitely can't wait to return sometime in the future."

Ithaca, N.Y.-based Engineers for a Sustainable World, which was founded in 2002, has a network of more than 3,000 professionals and students working to reduce poverty and improve global sustainability. Its annual conference, "Sustainability as Security: Meeting the Needs of a Changing World," will take place Oct. 5–9 at the University of Texas in Austin. For more information on the group, visit www.esustainableworld.org.

 

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