Please review the Research Guidelines for further information.  If you would like to work on one of the projects listed below, please contact EWB-USA Projects.  At the end of your research, EWB-USA asks that you send us a link to your final report that we will include on our web site. If you have research ideas that you think could make great projects for EWB-USA students and faculty,  feel free to bring them to our attention and we will post them on this web page.

Last Updated: 7/23/08

These are research projects that are open to any chapter or senior design project.

We ask that you send an e-mail letting us know that you are working on the project, and then send a final report once the project is finished.

E.E.	Solving the problem of electricity generation for all villages everywhere	Impoverished villages would like to have electricity as the other more developed nations do. Mostly these communities are looking for electricity for some lighting in their houses, to run a radio and possibly, the $100 laptop once it's released (22 Wh per XO battery pack recharge, probably twice a day on average). The hinderances for this are system cost & maintenance, energy storage, disposal of batteries (if used), and environmental impact. Most of the community members in these villages only make about $1 per day and barely make enough to eat. To put this into perspective, if someone makes $40,000 per year, that is $160 per day. Something that is only $5 per month for someone in a village would be the equivalent of that person in the USA paying $800. Would you pay $800/month for your electricity? As an example, Is it is practical for generating small amounts of electricity, in the KWh/day, from children playing before or after school or during recess on a merry-go-round?
M.E.	A Simple Medical Device - A Handheld Dispenser of Pharmaceutical Powder	A new concept for formulation of solid-form pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals for oral administration has been developed – the pharmaceutical agent is baked into small “beads” with a diameter of 0.5-1.0 mm. These mini-particles are coated to allow high storage stability, delayed release in the body, full taste masking and dynamic dosing. These particles can be blended with food or drinking water and are advantageous for pediatric pharmacotherapy. This project entails development of an inexpensive and disposable dispenser that allows graded dispensing/dosing of pharmaceuticals for instance based on body weight or age. The dispenser need to be handheld and the mechanism to be actuated by mechanical force. This could lead to a revolutionary new concept for packaging and dispensing of pharmaceuticals.
M.E.	Machine for express seed removal	In many locations around the world, people clear fields for planting by burning the scrub away. While this method requires less labor, it also leads to a decrease in air quality and an increase in green house gases. Tractors are expensive and in many mountainous communities, they would not even be able to reach the fields. Often fields are on a 20-45 degree angle. Aside from thrashing, perhaps there is a less expensive easier way of clearing fields of their vegetation. Electricity or other fuels are often expensive and limited in these areas. The cost would need to be low (under $200), although perhaps multiple farmers could pull their funds to purchase one for the area. This device would clear the fields and allow replanting without the biohazard of burning the fields.
M.E.	Drying Mechanism for Rice	In areas where many communities grow rice, such as those in tropical Asia, most farmers dry the rice after harvesting it on "multi-purpose drying pavement". In most cases, this is the local road. With frequent rains, the farmers must move the rice quickly and often. If the rain continues, the rice is lost, not to mention the rice lost from vehicles driving over it. The percentage of the crop lost could be as high as 10%. This problem has been identified by the Philippines Ministry of Agriculture.  The local agricultural engineer has a prototype dryer the farmers can use to dry crops even when it rains. It is quite interesting - the primary source of energy being the rice hulls and a small diesel engine to drive the fan. The dryer needs improvements, which could be done by members of Engineers Without Borders.  The area is safe; this project has huge payback potential for this region and any other tropical region with a drying problem.
M.E.	Heat Powered LED Lighting	Open indoor fires are used both for cooking and light in the evenings. A high efficiency cook stove can greatly improve fuel use for cooking and decrease smoke inhalation, however it cuts out light. Traditionally, a few 1-Watt LED’s have been used to light up a small room as well as a campfire. However, solar LED lighting systems may not work during the rainy or winter seasons in some areas. A thermoelectric charging source could provide this power by sitting on top of a high efficiency cook stove. Peltier junctions optimized for use as heat pumps are relatively inexpensive ($16 for a 50 watt module), and could possibly be used to generate 2-5 watts as a thermoelectric generator despite poor efficiency. Various fans with similar technology that sit on top of woodstoves are commercially available. The goal is low cost per watt for a 5 watt generator – not necessarily efficiency. If the balance of the system (aside from the Peltier module) can be manufactured in country with basic tools, that would be helpful. But can it be made for less than $60?
M.E.	Inexpensive Portable Incubator	Several water quality testing kits are available to traveling project teams, although a major obstacle to obtaining highly accurate results is the absence of an inexpensive, portable incubator. There would be a high demand for such a product because of the need to supply quantitative information on water quality for engineering analysis. If project teams are able to provide this accurate reporting, it will serve to enhance the effectiveness of the water quality metric.
M.E.	Machine to Clear Crop Waste to Decrease Intentional Burns	This project focuses on devising some way to clear fields in Central America without mass burning. There are time constraints and the terrain is at a 45 degree angle so normal tractors are impractical as well as beyond the finances of most poor communities who farm in this region. What is needed is something like a mechanical locust. A mulching mower that remained low to the ground that is strong enough to mulch corn stalks, or maybe a snow blower to put it in piles for removal would be viable options. This is a great project for creative engineering students to tackle, and it will require outside the box thinking and a completely new approach to clearing fields. The aspects of this problem are complex. Most farmers work on weekends. They have another job to support their families and the farm provides the food - it is rarely a cash crop for sale to others. In the fall they have approximately a six week window to harvest crops and clear fields to plant a new crop prior to the heavy rainy season. Since most can only work on weekends and part of this window is used for harvesting, time is severely limited, so fields are set on fire to clear them quickly. Unfortunately, they often get out of control and burn other things, homes, forests etc., as the communities have no real system of fire departments. This smoke makes visibility almost zero and the pollution from this smoke can extend all the way to Texas and other parts of the USA. The smoke creates breathing problems for normal people and severe to fatal for those who are have prior problems as well as the young and elderly.
M.E.	Vegetable Oil Engine Research	Research on the long term effects of running small diesel engines on various vegetable oils needs to be performed. Various oils (palm oil, jatropa oil, fish oil, etc.) are being investigated for running small diesel generators; however the long term effects of these oils is not known. Soybean oil is traditionally used and many of the other oils have substances not in the soybean oil. This might be a good project for an automotive department with access to small diesel generators (both indirect injection and direct injection).
civil	Cold Weather Composting Toilet Design	Composting toilets do not work in cold climates where the waste is below 60F for much of the year, or if it actually freezes for months at a time. Many high mountain sites have a sufficient solar resource even during the winter, so perhaps a low cost solar heating design can be created. There are several of these in existence already in Colorado; however, they are too expensive. The goal is to make an inexpensive cold climate composting toilet.
civil	Commercial Solar & Wind Powered Mango Dryer	To improve the drying speed of the mangos in Haiti by circulating air within the dryer.  Possible starting points:  Wind-powered ceiling fan (nearly constant wind in Haiti): small wind turbine above the roof directly rotating a ceiling fan under the roof.
civil	Machine to Remove Individual Grains from a Seed Stalk	Millet grinders are very common in the developing world. These are fairly simple and durable machines for grinding millet, sorghum, peanuts, corn, etc. into flours of various consistencies. The development advantage is these grinders reduce the time and effort women must expend in producing the same product by hand. However, one step in this process that is very time consuming and labor intensive, and which the grinder does not solve, is removing individual grains from a seed stalk. Seed stalks are generally about two feet long and an inch or so in diameter. These seed stalks (which are stored for sometimes more than twelve months in adobe granaries) are threshed by hand using a mortar and pestle or else by spreading the stalks over a hardpan surface and beating repeatedly with sticks. Either approach is hard on the body, labor intensive, and time-consuming.
civil	Low Cost Solar Collector Design Performance Modeling	Many Central Asian countries would benefit from solar thermal collectors for water and space heating. High quality manufactured collectors, such as in the United States, are not available there. Basic materials such as wood, horsehair, sheet metal, glass, and black paint are. How well does a simple collector built of these materials perform compared to commercially manufactured collectors? The performance numbers and design parameter report would be something we could provide to local NGO’s, local engineers, and teams who may eventually use them. Part I: Catalogue the traditional methods in different areas. Part II: Perform CFD and thermal simulations on various traditional methods to determine effectiveness and how to apply to new building design.
civil	Natural cooling methods	Research on natural cooling methods used traditionally in desert and tropical climates (Africa, SE Asia) are not used on many “modern” buildings of western design, and the buildings become uninhabitable during summer.
civil	Sorting and Translation of Home Power Archives	We need to collect various packs of literature about renewable energy technologies (PV, solar thermal, etc) for use in training EWB teams, as well as local NGO’s/contacts. One good location of useful hands on material is Home Power Magazine archives (15 years of magazine articles). These need to be sorted by application area, and then all of the articles in each area need to be translated to French, Spanish, etc.
civil	Testing Equipment for Improved Stove Design	There is much work being done on improving cook stove designs. People are working on improving efficiency and lowering pollution. Two example organizations working on this are Rocket Stove and Approvecho. One thing that is missing from many of these is an affordable method to test the various new designs. An inexpensive (less than $400) meter for oxygen and CO content of the flue gases needs to be developed. A possible suggestion is to use a sensor to determine the mass produced (less expensive), similar to what is used in automobile emissions systems.
Civil	Water Testing for “Crystal Clear Technologies”	Crystal Clear Technologies (CCT) is funded with an SBIR grant from the National Science Foundation to develop nanotechnology that will remove both biological and chemical contaminants from water. Part of our P2 SBIR grant with the NSF is to design, build, field test and certify (international cert.) a complete water purifier for both developed world and non-developed world. The developed world customer is the U.S. Army & Marine Corp. who wants a portable water purifier capable of purifying contaminated raw water into certifiable drinking water for a squad of 10-12. EWB-USA will be working on the non-developed world unit. A research group already has a working prototype and we are looking for more assistance.

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Other Interesting Areas of Research

• Pumping Systems (rope pumps, ram pumps, solar pumps)
• Improvement of Existing Earthenware Cooling Techniques
• Water Storage and Water Treatment Systems
• Small Hydro Systems
• Solar, Wind, and Hydro. Energy Production Systems
• Solar Heating, Cooling and Cooking Systems
• PV Computer Systems
• Production of Biofuel and Biomass