Composting – FA 11 Week 6

We have an additional meeting on Thursday in geisel library study room. It’s the first time for the team to meet outside the garden, and each of us brought food to share in the meeting(except the ‘forgetable’ team leader who actually created this idea…)

We began to discuss the design of the water sink in the garden. The water sink is used to wash volunteer’s hand as well as tools and garden products (veggies, fruits). The water is gonna be obtained from the irrigation system, and it will be recycled and drained back to the garden plot after being used in the sink. What an amazing resource-saving idea!!

We generally designed the whole system including the sink and the pipes connecting irrigation system, sink, and plots. Then we divided the system into 3 general parts. We agreed to finish researching and measuring for the first part of the design (about how to drain the water into the sink). By this time, the efficient team members have finished all tasks about it.

Next weekend, we’ll further discuss about the second part– the design of the sink — dimension, material, water storage, etc.

Our goal is to finish designing by the end of the quarter, and begin working on it next quarter, and finish it by the 6th week.

 

Below are pictures of our team in NC garden this weekend. (Again except the team leader who had his own business at that time…)

We’re cool to work for additional hours, cuz we love our project!

Hydroelectricity – Thailand – Week 5 FA 11

Completed TGIF Grant.

We are meeting again this week (today). My team will creating piping blue prints and deciding what pipes we want to buy.

Adding edits later tonight. This is just so you know I didn’t forget

Composting – FA 11 Week 5

Finally … The compost system is done!!  It’s amazing that we finish installing that huge composting monster in 3 weeks with limited members and tools. Today two of our members couldn’t make it, but thanks to Josephine who came out to help us!

The three composting sections turned out to be not perfectly parallel to each other, because it’s hard to build them when the ground is  uneven itself. We adjusted the position of these 3 sections for several times to make sure that the slide doors in the front wouldn’t get stuck. Fortunately the system then looked like an art piece with a sophisticated theme — the world is not lined up…! (Thanks to Joshphine’s Idea)

Then the composting part of the ESW Garden project came to a pause, and we’ll see how the composting system runs to determine if the garden needs more composting capacity. From next meeting, the team’s gonna focus on the construction of a water sink so that people volunteering in the garden have a place to wash their hands, and the water is gonna be drained back to the field! Let’s go on greening the world!

Thailand – Bioenergy – FA 11 Week 4

Accomplishments: This week, we changed the meeting time to Friday at 1pm in the SRC, and new member Pule showed up. Pule suggested a door mechanism to let flow out of the digester, as opposed to our previous idea of the slurry pushing itself upwards into a separate chamber. Pule also suggested ideas for a sequester to separate the H2S and CO2 from the biogas based on an experiment he has previously done. He believes that baking soda should be able to dissolve the H2S gas.

Problems: One problem this week was Jordan not showing up to the meeting, since the preliminary prototype that has been built so far is at his house and he knows the most about it. Another problem was Matt not showing up to the meeting since he has been researching sequester designs.

Goals: Our goal for the next week is to complete the application for a TGIF grant. Additionally, Pule will work on designing a sequester for the digester. Josh will work on implementing our design in Autocad to see what the dimensions of our protoype/digester should be. Verena will figure out what materials would be most ideal to make the digester out of.

Composting – FA 11 Week 4

The construction of the composting system is moving on, but not being finished as expected. The main problem we met was to dig a deep hole to put in the red-wood poles so that the whole system could be further consolidated. We finally gave up the plan to dig a deep enough hole to put the red-wood all the way down.

The system now seems nice and solid though not perfectly horizontal. But we think the  imperfection of the structure won’t cause a big issue in the future. there’s supposed to be no storms… or terrorist attack.

We must finish the building process by next week, just by digging another hole, and fix all red-wood with the system, and then connect the first and third section so that the space between those two sections turn out to be the second section.

We also distributed jobs in filling in TGIF funding application. The name of the project is GARDEN INTEGRATION PROJECT. it delivers the message that the next goal of our team is not only building more compost system, but also other facilities to help the garden form a integrated production flow line — Composting system, irrigation system, wash sink to treat with the product, etc. And ESW is hoped to involve more in the construction of the garden. Rain-collection, bioenergy composting, etc More environmental-friendly ideas would be introduced to this gardens to make it an experimental garden. COME TO NC GARDEN WITH THE SEED OF YOUR GREEN DREAM.

 

 

Thailand – Purification Team – FA11 Week 4

Hey everyone,
The Purification team is ecstatic to welcome two new members: Erik H. and Alex J! With the two new members, our team has expanded to seven members. This week, we discussed the details of the prototype, and dimensions should be finalized next week. Also, I have placed an order for UVC light bulbs and ballasts. We can help us get a better idea of building the UVC filter. Also in this week, we discussed the options of roughing filter, and found it unnecessary for our situation in the villages in Thailand since roughing filter only lowers the turbidity, but does not slow down water flow. Also, we have decided to split the team up into two.

1. Thailand Research Team:
   • Meeting times will still be on Mondays at 2-3PM
   • Mainly discussing the logistics about the project to prepare for the building team to function smoothly
2. Building Team:
   • Building times will be during weekends, TBA
   • Building small scale models for our parts, Prototype I

Next week, we will decide on a meeting time over the weekend and talk about the options of having a dam in the rivers in Thailand. We will also finalize on the making the slow sand filter model.

See you next week!

Peggy Ip

Aquaponics – Week 4 FA 11

1. Funding:

We’re planning on applying for both the TGIF grant (offered by the SRC) and the TGNC (sponsored by Scripps). Garrett and Chad will do the budget section, and Brad will fill out the remaining parts. We’ll check in with them on Sunday to see if they are on track for finishing. However, if they need help, they can just ask the group. We could make it a Google doc so everyone can contribute, if the  TGIF-ers so desire. That is due on the 28th (next Friday).

I’ll be responsible for the TGNC grant. Basically, it’s a contest for environmentally-friendly and commercially-viable projects to win up to $8,000 in cash. Imagine what we could do if we get all the money we apply for (Cancun, anybody? Jk. Or am I).

 

2. Saturday’s field “research” (field trip):

On Saturday, we went to the New Roots Aqua Farm in City Heights to check out their aquaponics system. The set-up is huge: 3-300+ gallon horse troughs filled with tilapia and massive grow-beds, all connected by PVC pipes. It’s probably the model for the system we wish to install on campus, albeit on a smaller scale and with some needed adjustments. Afterwards, all of the team members and team leaders went to Souplantation to eat and hang out (yay, bonding time!).

The New Roots Aqua Farm is part of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), which is an awesome organization. It assists newly arrived refugees to meet the challenges of adjusting to a new culture and helps them get on their feet to find jobs. They also provide much-needed services, such as arranging health screenings and immunizations, enrolling children in school and adults in ESL classes, and assisting with applications for Social Security Cards, MediCal, and Selective Service registration.

If you’re interested and want more info, visit this website: http://ircsandiego.blogspot.com/2010/06/irc-new-roots-aqua-farm.html
3. Expansion:

Rough plans in the works today to ask for space and possibly get aquaponics systems up on the rooftops of dorms and apartment buildings. Apparently Revelle has a garden on top of their shiny new 2nd year housing. The next logical step is to *BAM* put an aquaponics system there. Now if we could only get administration to see it our
way…

If you would like to join the Aquaponics team or receive updates on our awesome projects, please contact me: graayyce@gmail.com. If you would like to come out to meetings and get involved, our weekly meetings are on Wednesday at 1pm in the Sustainability Resource Center in Price Center Theatre.

- Grace Nam

Thailand – Hydroelectricity – Wk 4 FA 11

How the alternator fits in.

Were finally ready to move forward! After a large recruiting period, Hydroelectricity is holding their first meeting with all of the new members on monday. We hope to work out all the remaining kinks and prepare for a smooth (but busy) quarter.

Trong and I worked on the the box on wednesday, thanks to generosity of those who run the MAE 3 design studio. Instead of connecting all of the acrylic pieces directly, we are now using metal brackets to attach the sides of the box together. We are also considering placing handles on the side of the box to making easier to carry.

However, the biggest news of this week is the new structure of the team. In order to maximize the potential of our large group the team has been split into three different focuses: Innovation, Electricity, and Fluids/Piping. Rob Kepner is in charge of the Innovation team, Trong is in charge of the electrical components, and I am in charge of the Fluids and Piping.

GOALS

Innovation Team:

They are going to try to attack the problem with the alternator first. They will have to find a way to scrounge up some tools to open it but after that, they will experiment with different lubricants and other methods.

Electricity Team:

Trong has already planned out the electrical wiring, so he will need help gathering and ordering the remaining parts. He will also look into whether or not UCSD has soldering workshops so that his team is comfortable with the assembly down the road.

Piping Team:

We need to finish building the box primarily, and then we can decide how large of holes we want to create for the water streams.

Trong Tapping Holes

Composting–Week3 FA 11

On this Sunday we worked on digging out the old composting system, and then broadening the hole so that we can install our new compost system next weekend. it took much longer time to dig the hole than I expected, though our members and volunteers worked pretty and efficiently. Next week we’ll definitely finish the installation of the system so that the gardener can put the dirt back into it.

We checked the worm bin, and surprisingly that we couldn’t find any ‘grown-up’ worms, which was weird. But a lot of baby worms are still inside there. It seemed that the worm didn’t chew plants efficiently, and so we got food waste from Revelle Plaza to put inside bin, and will see how it goes.

Though We originally seek for food ‘waste’, what Revelle Plaza offered us were actually a lot of pieces of bread that hadn’t been sold. They looked really nice, but had to be dumped. ….. : (      The phenomenon of such resource waste is so widespread. It makes us realize that the earth is way farther from its goal to be a sustainable world. A lot of work needs to be done to achieve that goal, not only the advancement and implication of technology, but also the application of  a more advanced resources management system, and a more accurate expectation of market demand in order to reduce the waste in production.

SHOULD I DUMP ENGINEERING MAJOR TO BECOME AN ECONOMIST?…

The team leader of Thailand irrigation project, Efrain, also came to the garden to check out the garden irrigation system. We’re going to figure out a way to update the irrigation system here, as well as build a water sink. So those two things would be our next projects of the garden team. We’ll try to fill out the TGIF funding application hopefully this weekend.

Thailand – Purification Team – FA11 Week 3

The Purification Team finally finished discussing the information collected at the village, finishing with sharing some information and pictures from the second village, Ma Oh Jo. We compared the needs for two villages, Ka Thaw and Ma Oh Jo. While Ka Thaw has a greater source of water, the river, it isn’t as developed and wealthy as the second village Ma Oh Jo. We have decided that a rain harvesting collector would not be necessary there since the river runs steadily throughout the year. On the other hand, Ma Oh Jo’s water sources if from the ground, and last year, there was a drought during the winter where no water was coming out of the faucets in the families. While the infrastructures in the schools are asbestos-free, Ma Oh Jo would be perfect with a rain harvesting collector. This will prepare the villagers for the dry season in the following years.

We have also discussed our goals for the quarter in detail. In the next two weeks, we will be talking about alternate ways to handle heavy water flow in the rainy seasons. as well as ways to build small scale models. We hope to start building in Week 6. We will also try to apply for funds from The Green Initiative Fund (TGIF)

Purification Team at ESW’s first General Body meeting of the year