On Saturday, May 4, senior engineering majors will showcase their projects at the 29th-annual Senior Design Banquet and Projects Night. Each project represents a year of brainstorming, research, planning, constructing, critiquing and reviewing by one of Calvin's 17 senior design teams-composed of civil and environmental, chemical, electrical and mechanical engineering concentrators.
One of the teams presenting this year recently took first place nationally at World Vision's Disaster Shelter Competition. Held at John Brown University, the national competition seeks to find sustainable short-term living solutions to be used by aid organizations responding to natural or man-made disasters.
Calvin's team of civil and environmental engineers-Nick Liza, Walta Asfaw, David Headley and Dan Nederhoed, dubbed Team Calvin, created a model disaster shelter for Indonesia. That country endured earthquakes and tsunami in both 2004 and this year, which destroyed villages and left people homeless. "It gives them a little bit of a place so they can begin rebuilding their lives," Nederhoed explained the team's shelter.
Their project, a 99-percent PVC structure anchored by stakes and sandbags, endured the "shake" (earthquake) test, a 50 mph-wind test and various other assessment by the judges. Watch the shelter endure the tests (see second video on page): http://www.jbu.edu/shelter_contest/
The students enjoyed some of the nuances of the disaster shelter competition. Each shelter was tested by having a "simulated victim" stay overnight in it. "A student volunteer," Headley clarified. The structures were also judged for cultural appropriateness, which is why the Calvin shelter was sandbagged using "local" soil (soil from the testing site). For a full list of judging criteria, see http://www.jbu.edu/shelter_contest/rules/
The four engineers, under their more official title of Team DRS (Disaster Relief Shelter), will be presenting their project at the annual Senior Projects Night Open House, held 4 p.m. to 5:45 p.m., Saturday, May 4, in the Vermeer Engineering Projects Center and Prince Engineering Design Center on Calvin's campus. There will be 17 projects in all this year, including a Smart dashboard, a submersible robot and a wastewater treatment system for a village in Ecuador. For a full list of projects, see: http://www.calvin.edu/academic/engineering/senior-design/
For more info, contact Steve VanderLeest at 616-526-6559 or svleest@calvin.edu
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Received on Wed May 1 09:57:05 2013
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