Wu-Chen team wins ACSE Sustainable Development Award
The team, led by Wenzhuo Wu, assistant professor of industrial engineering, and Jun Chen, associate professor of mechanical engineering, won the 2018 ASCE Sustainable Development Award at the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Sustainable Design Expo. The first-place Purdue team included Ruoxing Wang, doctoral candidate in industrial engineering; Unmesha U. Kale, a senior in electrical and computer engineering; and Wentao Zhong, a junior in mechanical engineering.
Their project is titled “Development of an Economic Grain Storage System for Rain Season Harvest in Rural Africa.” Wu and the team developed a device that harnesses the energy created when a raindrop strikes a roof and converts it into electricity. The electricity can then be used to temperature-control grain storage facilities, thereby saving the crop.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) People, Prosperity, and the Planet (P3) program features a college competition in two parts. Selected student teams are given grants during the school year to develop proposals for solutions toward a sustainable future. They then bring their designs to the design expo in Washington, DC, as part of the USA Science and Engineering Festival, to compete for the P3 award and a further grant.
The ASCE Sustainable Development Award, sponsored by the Society’s Committee on Sustainability, bestows $1,000 on a student team for a project that solves a pressing need in a developing country, based on the project’s simplicity of design, its use of local raw materials, and its widespread effect on quality of life in that region.
Source: Wu-Chen team wins ACSE Sustainable Development Award