Water Resource Management

Started: Fall 2013

Current Term: Spring 2016

Description:
Happy Hollow Park is maintained by the City of West Lafayette. Currently, the park is experiencing erosion in multiple areas surrounding the trail and stream bed. The overall goal of the Happy Hollow EPICS team is to stop erosion within the park thus reducing the amount of sediment sent to the Wabash River. Currently we are looking at ways to prevent hill slopes erosion.

Current Project Members: Andrew Huang, Lana Huston, Monica Moran

Past Project Members: Andrew Huang, Callus Wayman, Scott Quillen, Pablo Schwiep, Loshini Vickneshwaran

Project Mentor: Dr. Engel

Started: Fall 2013

Current Term: Spring 2016

Description:
Hydroponics works with Lafayette Habitat for Humanity. The goal of this project is to build a hydroponic system for Habitat's newest site, Bean Bag. Bean Bag seeks to be a community center that also show cases various gardening and plant cultivation methods. This hydroponic system will be one of those methods used to educate the local community.

Current Project Members: Douglas Milani, Chad Lawrence, Daniel Seach, Steven Bjankini, Brooks Van Buren

Past Project Members: Douglas Milani, Jingfei Deng, Chad Lawrence, Arman Shroff, Sophie Weidenbenner

Project Mentor: Dr. Engel

Started: Spring 2010

Current Term: Postponed

Description:
In many developing countries, access to water is a major problem. People often have to walk great distances to reach a clean water sources. These communities need an affordable solution that will alleviate this problem. A hydraulic ram pump is a water pump that can pump water to higher elevations or long distances without using electricity; compressed air and water hammer power the pump. Currently we are in the detail design phase. This semester we hope to create the most efficient pump and find a project partner who will need this pump. Hopefully by the end of spring 2014 we will deliver the project. Innovative and affordable solutions like hydraulic ram pumps are effective solutions to the global water crisis.

Current Project Members: N/A

Past Project Members: Ayomide Lamuren, Jerry Chen, Terry Tsai, Andreas Watts, Ariel Humphrey, Sam Balskas, Evan Gliniecki, Zack Capo, Brian Bertini, Cody Pae, Kristy Martini, Rinat Mukhamadiyev, Birenda Kujur, Nicholas DeNardo, Brian Deak, Brooke Poppe, Leah Garner, Chiehen Wu, Chun Ta Huang, Vincent Marquet

Project Mentor: Dr. Engel

Started: Fall 2011

Project Completion: Spring 2012

Description:
Our project is to design a runoff management system for the new 27,000 square foot ADM (Archer Daniels Midland) building and surrounding areas. Also included in this land area is an area where several coal fly ash trucks are washed daily and there is a coal fly ash retention area on-site. The different facets of this project include researching and prototyping a coal fly ash retention system that is cost-effective and practical. Another aspect is the trench system which diverts the surface runoff from the building area to a subsurface wetland system across the road. We will also investigate and design options for a pervious pavement demonstration area in the parking lot on the South end of the building. The final aspect of this project is the design of the subsurface wetland system for managing runoff for a large storm event scenario. This will be the senior design project focus of the team. The objective of this project is to provide an outdoor laboratory along with a practical and innovative solution to excess runoff. We will propose monitoring and encourage demonstration of sustainable technologies to ensure that the educational aspect is intertwined with the practical design of the storm water runoff system.

Project Members: Stephen Kelly, April Wang, Wilson Batdorf, McKenna Maier, Chistopher Tito, Neil Cooper, Minju Lee, Morgan Thome, Avinash Ravi Raghavan

Project Mentor: Dr. Engel

Started: Spring 2010

Project Completion: Fall 2010

Description:
The goal of this project is to create and implement a design for a green roof that can be installed on multiple buildings.

Project Members: Erica Merrifield, Katelyn Kulczyk, Robbie Otten, Allie Rader

Project Mentor: Dr. Engel

Started: Fall 2010

Project Completion: Spring 2011

Description:
The Greater Lafayette community needs to mitigate non-point-source pollution generated from combined sewer overflow (CSO) during rain events. The Wabash River and other water bodies are polluted with CSO water containing large nutrient loads from sources such as lawn fertilizers and pet waste. This pollution creates hypoxic conditions not only in our local bodies, but also downstream in areas such as the Gulf of Mexico. Our objective is to educate residents about Low Impact Development (LID) Best Management Practices (BMPs) and to provide rain barrels to those residents that have been identified as living in a “critical subwatershed” in Greater Lafayette. Rain barrels will be offered to qualifying residents in these areas.

Rain barrels attach to gutters and reduce storm water runoff by collecting water from the roofs of homes; rain barrels also provide opportunities for water reuse—the barrel contains a spigot and the water can be used to water gardens, to wash cars, and for other various tasks around the home. Students in this WRM project will conduct surveys and workshops in the community about rain barrels, and assist with the installation of the rain barrels, which will be provided at a reduced cost to encourage participation.

Project Members: Stephen Lindorfer, Moises Cervantes, Hani Kim, Yoojung Lee, Xun Zhou

Project Mentor: Dr. Engel

Started: Fall 2010

Project Completion: Spring 2012

Description:
Access to sufficient amounts of clean drinking water is a serious problem in the rural area near Barbosa, Colombia. The Kimberly-Clark Company, a paper products manufacturer, established a plant in Barbosa in 2008 and now wishes to promote public health in the area by ensuring a reliable drinking water supply in nearby rural areas. Because groundwater resources are severely limited in the area, treatment of available surface water is the only viable means of producing safe, potable water.The Colombia WRM team is working to establish a series of workshops with rural communities on building their own ice roughly 180 people, andslow sand water filters first designed and implemented by a GET in March 2011. Furthermore the team is working on a community-sized scale up design to serv a continuous effort to enhance and expand the original sand filter design.

You can check out the Colombia Project's blog here.

Project Members: Fernando Segovia, Manaz Taleyarkhan, Amber Scheid, Jason Kaczkowski, Nicolas GuerraMondragon, Roderick Lammers, Ashley Stahly

Project Mentor: Dr. Engel