Engineers Without Borders

2-27-2008 General meeting

Feburary 27rd, 2008, 7:00pm

Kelley 1001

I. Announcements

• Meeting Dead Week Canceled
• Elections 2nd meeting next term
• Poker night and prize scouring
• Coordnator for interfacing with ORG’s

II. Dave Dixon from Hydrogen Club

Current situation has Fossil fuels sourcig most of our energy needs. Energy needs are going to increase overall in upcoming years, mostly in developing countries. Fossil fuels already have, or will peak soon.

CUrrent solar usage of solar energy ~ 13 TW. There are many different modes for collecting solar energy: cyanobacteria, wind and solar volatics.

Hydrogen, produced by cyanobacteria, would serve as a “battery” for solar energy. Currently our best efficiencies for processing hydrogen are ~ 40-60% electrical efficiency. Issues: storage of hydrogen and catalyst in fuel cell. There are currently many fuel cell cars in testing phase. Currently H2 production uses Natural Gas. Biggest hurdles are: economical production, storage, transport, materials for fuel cells and public acceptance. Payoffs: low carbon, effient, small scae utilization, lots of resources.

Their Research incloves phototrophic cyanbacteria. They have a hydrogenase that makes hydrogen, but need to be in oxygen deficient environment. There are 4 approaches to engineering them: metabolic engineering, directed evolution, thermo tolerance, and solid state encapsulation.

Dave works on encapsulating the bacteria in a silica sol-gel. Binding the cells in this silica bead arrests their growth, so they output their energy in hydrogen instead of growth. They have thin-film membranes that only allow hydrogen, for separation of that from other outputs. This research has been going on on campus for 7 years.

For more information email Dave Dickson at dicksond@engr.orst.edu or Liz Burrows at burrowse@engr.orst.edu. The hydrogen club has meetings Wednesdays 4-5.

Project Meeting, February 11, 2008

Sources

El Naranjito (been looking at)

Cerro Caballer ( 1 time payment $2000 offer was turned down)

Don Hector

(.26 L/sec need for 100 people)

Question that need answered. (mainly for Cerro Caballer, El Narinjito, Don Hector in that order)

Question

How to measure water flow in ground

• Dig a hole _____ m
• Water in _____
• Depth _____ m
• Water Level
• Time to fill
• Diameter of hole (@bottom)

Discover Owner ship

· Exact/ Rough Boundaries

One method recommended by Advisor

· Dig a hole to refusal ( not to roots but a rock big enough that can not be passed)

· See how fast the hole fills

· Time this ( record right away or in 5 minutes)

· Record color of the soil

o Dark Grey

o Blue Grey

o Dark Brown

• Record how deep the water is from the ground surface (top of the hole)
• Record the consistency of the soil (dirt)
  • Sandy
  • Finer than sand but not sticky
  • Gravel

Project Meeting Minutes, February 18, 2008

Main Meeting Agenda

• News/ Announcements
• Update from PCV
• Group Breakout
  • Mapping/ Health: Kelly Kibbler
  • Design: Carl Moen
  • Presentation for Board: Aparna
  • Reply to PVC: Alfonso

• Progress Report From Groups

Project Meeting

PCV- Has gone on vacation for the week, and no answers have been received from him. Still waiting for answers from last week

Orifice- Dan Horner

• Depth of pipes minimum cover is 30 in. can be reduce to 24 in. for private These are Oregon Values. Good for 8in diameter.
• Dan’s father has information if more is needed.
• Depth for burial could be based upon frost
• Conduit considered for underneath the road.
• ¾ in. pipe being considered for pipe.

Pressure issues

• 55 gallon drum could be used to remove head. Could be used as pressure break. Open to air will depressurize system.
• Closest source is 70m above the outlet. Decreased pipe size will reduce head through friction

Carl created an idea for the tank by the village in solid works

• Possible changes
  • Raising the spigot above ground level
  • Needs to be 1.5 ft above the ground for water collection

Cost estimate

• Already established, expect modifications closer to implementation
• Use information from last trip, communication with PCV, and Home Depot her in Corvallis
• Carl is sending Kelly an email with cost estimates
• Rough estimate, cost is assumed to be similar compared to HD in Corvallis based upon pervious trips
• Possible trial in Corvallis

Wahaka pictures

• Similar topography, and climate
• Corn raised fro subsidence
• Dug a big hole
  • Dark grey soils, hydric soils means full saturated throughout the year

• Used PVC pipe to step down diameter of pipe
• Hole can be used to find the water table
• Horizontal wells were used
• Screen slots were used (PVC pipe with hack saw grates cut into)
• Course clean gravel and sand placed over the grated pvc pipe
  • Course sand on the bottom finer sand on top.
• Used a sifter to separate sand into fine and course
• ¾ in pipe was used, previous storage tank was used
• Collection pipes were not covered, water was left standing above
  • No issues with the water in this case
  • This water is being used mainly for drinking

Alfanso: PCV Communication

• Los plattios is not a problem to use
• Rotary information for San Salvador from Aparna
• Wants rain water catchment system for this trip
• Need paper filled out for Ministry of the Environment
• Springs look very dry

Project Meeting, January 14th, 2008

• Agenda
  • Announcement
    • Work plan review
    • Spring application available
  • Project presentation
    • Carl: El Naranjito
    • Evan: Las Mercedes
  • Discussion
  • Selection
• Carl - El Naranjito community water supply
  • Main idea
    • Take water from spring box to community
    • Route is straight forward
    • Minor question r/t which side of road to go on - which will be best for the pipe
    • High point is at road junction, but washing station is high enough to clear w/o problem
  • PRO:
    • Good community involvement with water board
      • Water board wants this
    • Easy route
    • Community is interested
    • Serve a large # of houses
      • Covers all of EN
    • Hydraulic movement is assured
      • Start high, through high spot
      • Ends a lower spot
  • CON
    • Land ownership
      • Owner is identified
      • He wants money or compensation for use of spring box and land
        • This must be put into place before TAC
    • TAC approval –> technology, sustainable?
  • Construction details
    • Tap/spigot location
      • Do we add a wash station?
      •  
    • Size of pipe vs stream flow
      • Stream disappears at some point, don’t want to redirect too much water
    • Size of pipe vs use
    • Build diversion/weir
      • Going into hillside

    
    

    • Overflow/waste @ tap
      • How to deal with it
        • Erosion
    • Need to release air
  • Project feasibility r/t time
    • Three sections
      • Pipe/ditch
        • Time intensive
          • Could be good project for community input
      • Weir
        • difficult
      • Spigot
        • Difficult
  • Questions r/t project
    • This project does not include water storage
    • Drop is ~30 meters overall
      • ~20 meters from top to high point
    • Soil around diversion is mostly rock
      • Rest is ~clay loam mixture
      • Looks to be hard - digging is tough to do
    • Soil intrusion into water - contamination
    • Storage possibilities
      • Just what is in the impoundment area
        • Collection not storage
      • Impoundment –>slope failure
    • Dry season –> source drying up
      • Community is aware of this possibility
    • Storage C-tap (?) future
      • I don’t know what this note is referring to
• Evan - Las Mercedes
  • Dirty water project: Chocolate water
  • School board (ACE) reported that water is visibly discolored during the wet season
  • December team investigated point-of-source
    • Visible turbidity in Dec (dry season)
    • Expect increased contamination r/t rainy season erosion and surface flow
  • Spring site
    • Large potential for fun-off contamination
    • Semi-covered area actually resulted in mosquito-breeding spot
    • Difficulty discerning exactly which spring box feeds school
  • Outstanding issues
    • Permission given by ACE president, teachers, MOE
    • NEED permission from entire ACE, entire community
    • Not enough water to also supply Escobal - separate solution?
      • Escobal is smaller community close-by
    • Obtain permission from Don Tom Hawk (LM Finca owner)
      • Possibility of requirement to work on roads in exchange for permission
  • Solution options
    • Short term solution
      • Point of use fix
        • Storage drums as sediment collection system
    • Long term solution
      • Clean up the source of the sediment
  • Carl’s drawing
    • Concrete box
    • Large rock walls
      • Show some water seepage
    • Questions
      • To enclose entire area
      • Enclose part of area
        • Would require lots of custom concrete work to truly seal it off
        • This might actually decrease flow of source as well
  • Construction
    • Difficult to get to
    • Hard to construct in r/t not much open space
  • What do you want to do?
    • Seal it or get as much out of the way as possible
  • Diversion of water from source around the area
  • Feasible, but need experienced cement and concrete people
    • Geology experience r/t large rocks and earthquake zone
  • Questions r/t project
    • Clothes washing in area
    • Sustainability and follow up
• Thing to consider
  • Water accessibility vs water quality
    • LM
      • School and community already has water, but poor quality
    • EN
      • project will increase accessibility to more people
  • Feasibility
    • EN will require lots of technical expertise
      • High potential for problems
• DECISION
  • Go with El Naranjito
  • Community thoughts
    • Need to decide on community use during dry season
• Things to do
  • Decide design plan
  • Start material list
  • Need permission from owner
  • Compensation??
  • Decide on stages

2-20-2008 Board Meeting

Feburary 20th, 2008, 7:00pm

Kelley 2057

I.Organic Growers Irrigational Project - Jesse Boudart

Julie who spoke at our group meeting last week, invited us to help them repair their irrigational system. THey’ve also requested we lift the the current water barrels. It would be nice to use their site as a location to practice the things we’d like to do in El Salvador. We could help them develop some sort of drip irrigation for helping and form a more solid relation so we can continue to use their ground to practice for our other projects. We will form a position to be the Organic Growers liason to head this up.

II. OSU Stand- Alfonso Jimenez

Looking for us to help fund a public lecture from John Prendergast on the order of $100-200. The talk would give people access to information a bout the genocide in Darfur. THey have raised $3500 to date. All the sponsors would be advertised on their flyers. The are looking to get the funds by mid-march. Doug will look into our guidelines and at the next board meeting we will decide on this.

III. Fundraising- Katie Bruce

• Poker Night Looking at May 9th or 16th for the poker night. The point was brought up that the 16th might be moms weekend. We earmarked the lounge area as well as the gym. John Mills is helping us we tables and poker sets and such. The idea is people will pay a cover charge and be given a number of chips. Then they can exchange chips for raffle tickets and go for prizes. We do need prizes, getting people to come will be easy if we have good prizes. We need people to canvass the city with brochures and ask for good prizes. It would be good to have some entertainment to go along with this. Potentially have a good band.
  • Brad will contact Rotary from information from Evan

IV. Professional Mentor for El Salvador Project

The upcoming project is to direct ground water into an area and pipe it into El Naranjito. We may or may not be able to go spring break due to timing. So potentially we will have an after spring trip.

There are two potential mentors can go. One is the father of one of the alternates and a CE with a PE stamp. The other is a husband of Malia and a geologist.

V. Bio-diesel Club

• They hopefully have access to a professor who can get ehm satellite images of the village.
• Int two weeks they should have their method and stock chosen. They should also have their environmental immpact report completed.

IV. Wind Turbine

• Facilities have given the wind turbine group the okay to get on top of buildings to make wind measurements.
• At the second general meeting next term we will vote on joining with EWB.

IIV Conference

• The COE will cover 1/3 of our proposal and forward it on to the departments for them to fund 1/3. The other third we will either be funded in part by the club or fund our selves.

IIX. Upcoming Meetings

• Next week we will have the hydgrogen club come peak if possible.
• THe meeting dead week has been canceled.
• THe first meeting next term, Katie will like up a speaker.

2-13-07 General Meeting

Feburary 13th, 2008, 7:00pm

I.Travel Team Selection - Jessica

The team is as follows:

Alfonso Jimenez-Pedro

Malia Kupillas

Nick Moses

Kelly Kibler

Michelle Adlong

Araceli Carlos

Janice Keeley

II. Officer Elections

Scheduled for the 2nd meeting of spring term. We are planning on doing online voting. You must be a paid member, so make sure that you register with birdie or nick.

III. The biodiesel Partnership initiative

The partnership was approved. There is currently a group preparing to go back to Washington DC to apply for an EPA grant.

IV. Other Projects

• Wind Project
  They have an idea for the wind turbines that they would like to mount and the buildings they would like to use. They have annemometers ready to be rented.

V. Julie Clark from the Organic Growers Club.

What is Organic Agriculture? The main point is that is puts equal amounts of energy into the system as it would get out. Current conventional agriculture emphasizes the marketing and business behind the farming.

What does the Organic Growers Club do? They are a volunteer student-run farm that grows over 40-crops, totally drip-irrigation system, that believe you should love what you eat. They make all their money from proceeds made from their vegetables. They generally have an acre out of their 3.5 acres in production. They have Thursday work parties during the work season to have people weed, harvest etc.

They have special training available for volutneers (tractors, tillers, seeders, etc). They have farm tours. They have ground available for special projects.

Annually they develop plant bed plans so to keep track of where they plant things each year. THey rotate their crops so that the plants are feeding the soil. They have 6 types of plants that run in rotation; Legumes, brassicas, heavy feeders, light feeders, solanaceous, and alliums.

Some interesting systems they have on hand. THey have an aquacultura irrigation system that lets fish add their “fertilizer” to the water. Their “chicken tractor” is where they put up a fence and loose a few chickens to fertilize the soil.

General Meeting, Feb. 27th, 2008

More info is coming on the general meeting for Wednesday, Feb. 27th, which is scheduled for 7:00 PM in room 1001 of the Kelley Engineering Center.

General Meeting, Feb. 13th, 2008

At the general meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 13, we’ll hear from Julie Clark of the OSU Organic Growers’ Club who will talk about organic farming and some of the OGC’s practices. The meeting is scheduled for 7:00 PM in room 1005 of the Kelley Engineering Center. As always, pizza and soda will be provided.

2-6-08 Board Meeting

Feburary 6rd, 2008, 7:00pm

Kelley 2057

I.Travel Team Selection - Jessica

II. Review of Expense report from December El Salvador Trip

III. Semi-Annual Newsletter

IV. Fundraising

V. Bio-diesel Memorandum

IV. Corrupt files on Stak

IIV WIKI

IIX. El Salvador Project

Partnership with OSU Biodiesel Initiative up for Vote

The OSU Biodiesel Initiative’s proposal to partner with EWB-OSU is going up for a vote. Below, you can find links to relevant documents explaining what the partnership would entail. All full members of EWB-OSU are eligible to participate in the vote, which will be conducted through this website. The voting page can be found at http://groups.engr.orst.edu/ewb/chapter_pages/vote.

Partnership Documentation

• The OSU Biodiesel Initiative’s Presentation to EWB-OSU
• The OSU Biodiesel Initiative’s Grant Proposal
• The Completed OSU Biodiesel Initiative Partnership Form
• A Handout About Biodiesel