Michigan Tech Senior Design Teams Earn National Attention

C&EE Senior Design Teams Earn National Attention

Michigan Tech News Story by Marcia Goodrich

MAY 5, 2005 -- Two senior design teams in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering have gained national and international attention for their work in developing countries.

One team is a finalist for the international Mondialogo Engineering Award and an EPA People, Prosperity and Planet Award.

The Mondialogo Award is supported by the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and Daimler-Chrysler. Projects are judged on technical excellence, sustainability, feasibility and intercultural dialogue. A total of 412 teams including 1,700 student engineers from 79 countries are participating, and winners will receive up to 15,000 euros at an international ceremony held May 27-31 in Berlin.

The team is investigating the use of sustainable construction materials in the developing world, specifically, substituting natural pozzolans (e.g., volcanic ash and rice husk ash) for Portland cement.

Natural pozzolans have been used for hydraulic cement since prehistoric times, but were abandoned for Portland cement technology in the early 1900s. In the second phase of their project, the MTU students plan to construct water storage tanks for use with rainwater harvesting systems in rural Philippine communities, where many families do not have access to safe drinking water.

The team is working with four PhD public policy students from the Nelson Mandela School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs at Southern University and A&M College in Baton Rouge, La., and a group of sanitary engineering students at Partido State University in the Philippines.

The Partido State students are led by a Michigan Tech graduate student, Dan Nover, who is currently in the Philippines as part of the Master’s International Peace Corps Program in Environmental Engineering.

Team members are civil engineering and environmental engineering students Helen Muga, Kristen Betz, Curtis Pranger, James Walker and Andrew Vidor. The team is advised by Professors James R. Mihelcic and Thomas Van Dam.

They are also traveling to Washington, DC, this month to compete against 65 other project finalists selected from among 400 participants for an EPA People, Prosperity and Planet Award. The team has already received a $10,000 grant, and the EPA will award an additional $75,000 to each of the top six teams in the competition. Entries will be judged by a panel of scientists and engineers from the U.S. National Academies. See the poster

The August 2004 Bolivian International Senior Design Class, advised by Lecturer Linda Phillips, is one of three finalists in the Parsons Brinckerhoff Environmental and Water Resource Student Design Competition, coordinated by the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Environmental & Water Resources Institute. The annual competition includes senior design teams across the nation focusing on water resource engineering.

The team "Equipo Septico," which literally means "septic team," custom designed different on-site water treatment systems for two schools in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, after researching water-quality and soil characteristics at each site and conducting life-cycle analysis. See Web page for project here.

Team members Leslie DellAngelo, Chris Fehrman and Kimberly Kimmes will give a presentation on their project at the ASCE-EWRI Conference this month in Anchorage, Alaska.

Return to C&EE Dept. News
Return to C&EE Dept.

Last Modified: 5/17/2005