About the Environmental Design Project

E-mail Ted at etrein@gmail.com to be added to the environmental design e-mail list.

The focus of this year's competition will be to obtain pure water from a contaminated source.

In an effort to increase the number of conference offerings to non-structural engineering students, this year's hosts will be holding an environmental design project as part of the regional inter-campus conference competition.

Situation

The "Big One" has just occurred and getting the basic living necessities such as water is hard to come by. During the earthquake some sewage and other containments entered the water system. As local engineers you are now been hired to come up with a suitable portable water treatment solution to allow local residents to take water from local sources.

Guidelines

Each team will have 2.5 hours to clean one gallon of contaminated water. All designs must be built from household products that can be purchased at local stores, and must fit inside three standard buckets (for mobility purposes). One bucket must be designated as a collection bucket for the contaminated water. Teams must also design a build a pump to draw water from the contaminated supply to their own collection bucket; electric pumps will not be allowed.

Scoring Criteria

Teams will be ranked according to the economy, efficiency, usability, water quality, and presentation of their designs. The highest ranking school will receive 75 points, the second place school will receive 50 points, the third place school will receive 25 points, and all other participating schools will receive 10 points.

The above text was distilled from the 2007 Student Environmental Design Project rulebook.