A class of 14 UNH students won first place at the 2008 Environmental Design Contest in Las Cruces, N.M., on April 9 after developing a plan to retrofit a building in Phoenix, Ariz.
The judges of the contest were impressed enough with the presentation that the team has been invited to attend and present at the Environmental Protection Agency Science Forum in Washington, D.C., held from May 20 to May 22.
The class, which is required for senior environmental engineers like Hillary Schmidle, included writing a 26-page paper for the judges, making a large poster to sit behind them during their 15-minute PowerPoint presentation, and constructing bench scale models of three innovative technologies. All the hard work paid off though, according to Schmidle.
"The ability to travel to New Mexico and compete against other schools was like nothing I have done before," said Schmidle. "It was such a great learning experience to work with a large group and really put effort into a real-world problem."
The UNH team, named "Retrolutions," was made up of business students and environmental engineers. They were given the option of five different tasks for the contest and chose to modernize an existing commercial building and make it more energy efficient.
Since the students could not actually go to Phoenix to perform their tests, they had to research some important facts about the city, such as Phoenix's population and climate, before they could recommend that the building's occupants learn more about how to cut their high demands of energy and water.
Their project was titled "E.A.R.T.H.," which stands for Education, Awareness, Reduction, Technology and Holistic Approach. The three new technologies that the students developed to help the building diminish energy and water concerns were a gray water recycling system, a solar concentrating energy production system and a compressed air-enhanced evaporative cooling system.
Jeffrey Sohl and Jenna Jambeck serve as professors and faculty advisors to the group, though the two teach in different fields. Sohl is a professor of entrepreneurship in the Whittemore School of Business and Economics (WSBE) and Jambeck is an assistant research professor of civil and environmental engineering.
This difference proved to be unimportant though, as both Jambeck and Sohl worked with the team to help them think independently and make decisions on their own.
"What impressed me most was how hard they worked," said Sohl, who is also the director of the UNH Center for Venture Research. "They worked extremely hard right up until the last minute and were going over their presentations until 11 or 12 o'clock at night."
Jambeck was pleased with the work ethic of each student, but also with the process that each student went through to achieve their team victory in the design competition.
"It's more about the process than the actual endpoint," said Jambeck. "The class is a bridge between their academic career and their real-world career."
The class is listed as ENE 797, titled "WERC Project," and is available only to seniors in business or environmental engineering. Although it is a two-semester commitment, Schmidle said that she would "recommend it to anyone" and that it was a great way for her to connect her academic plans with possibilities for the future.
The contest in New Mexico featured 33 teams, totaling 190 participants, from 23 different universities and took place at New Mexico State University from April 6 to April 9. The competition was sponsored by Waste-Management Education and Research Consortium (WERC) and, while the majority of groups competing were from the United States, there were multiple teams from universities in Turkey, Canada and Mexico.
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