ESW-CIT – Engineers for a Sustainable World
California Institute of Technology Chapter
Our club will meet every other week at noon in the SFL study room. Our next meeting will take place 2010 Feb. 11 in SFL (study room #2-1) at noon.
We formed a team with Southern California Institute of Architecture to participate in the Solar Decathlon 2011 competition. The Solar Decathlon joins 20 college and university teams in a competition to design, build, and operate the most attractive and energy-efficient solar-powered house. People who signed up for the Solar Decathlon classes are required to attend each talk. A sign up sheet would be posted at each session. It is essential for you to attend each talk so you can gauge your interest in a particular aspect of Solar Decathlon, as you would be paired up with a SCI-ARC team. SCI-ARC students would also attend each talk. Master meeting schedule in year 2010 can be found here. For further information, please contact Fei Yang at feiyang@caltech.edu .
We are organising a outreach program at the John Muir High School, and are currently visiting the school once a week on Thurs for the Solar Cup competition. Solar Cup is a seven-month program that begins in the fall, in which high school teams totaling about 800 students build and race solar-powered boats at Lake Skinner, in Temecula Valley, learning about conservation of natural resources, electrical and mechanical engineering, problem solving and much more. For further information, please visit the Solar Cup website . If you are interested in the outreach program, please contact Michael CHENG at mmhcheng@caltech.edu.
The Biodiesel club is actively working on a reactor to convert used fryer oil into useable fuel. The club is seeking volunteers to perform various tasks, including getting the gas chromotography experimental data. For more information, please contact Seth John at sjohn@gps.caltech.edu or John VanDeusen at jvand@caltech.edu . The club right now meets regularly on every Friday at 10am-noon, but the meeting time is flexible according to the participants.
ESW-CIT brings together those with interests in international development, scientific problem-solving and partnership with developing communities. Our parent organization is ESW National. The objectives of ESW-CIT are to:
- Coordinate research opportunities, including new Caltech coursework, in sustainable and socially responsible development.
- Organize forums and workshops on working in developing communities. Provide opportunities for students to participate in engineering development projects both in the USA and abroad.
- Raise awareness of development issues and the critical role of engineers and scientists to engage in socially responsible endeavors.
Richard Nelson, an expert on biodiesel, was talking about biodiesel quality as well as resource assessment on the 2009 Sustainable Speaker Series.
A meeting about the Solar Decathlon 2011 competition sponsored by the US Department of Energy