Choosing your semester-long project is an important decision. The scope of your project dictates what you will write about in your Memo to me and all the sections of the Proposal to your client, as well as what you will speak about in your oral presentations. All projects will investigate how environmental technologies may be used to solve a particular sustainability problem for a particular client. There are several definitions of “sustainability,” and one of your first tasks will be to review those definitions and pick or modify one as the defining framework for your project.

In class, we will discuss the Request for Proposals to which you will respond – for now, be thinking of the sorts of sustainability topics you might want to investigate. If you choose as your client someone from the City of Austin Environmental Protection Division (or some similar City or regional agency), you might define a project in one of the following areas:

• Alternative energy, such as wind and solar power, and refinements of existing local power generation techniques such as coal gasification
• Programs relating to transportation-related issues such as public transportation, alternative fuels, and relief of traffic congestion
• Refinements to the region’s distribution and consumption of electricity, such as “smart grids”
• Improvements to the management of sewage and stormwater systems, or other approaches to the problem of Combined Sewer Overflows and their associated hazards
• Bioremediation and other emerging environmental restoration techniques
• Any program designed to improve local air and/or water quality
• Agriculture: agricultural waste, sustainable farming techniques
• Prevention and eradication of specific infectious agents such as West Nile virus or damaging organisms such as the emerald ash borer
• Treatment or disposal of specific waste products, pollutants, and hazardous substances of particular interest to the Wabash Valley, such as dioxin, mercury
• Green computing and electronic waste recycling

If you choose as your client someone from Facilities management at the University of Texas at Austin or another educational or private institution in Austin, you might define a need to investigate application of one of these technologies:

• Garden with greenhouse for research projects and supplementing meals
• Constructive use of storm water run-off, such as rain gardens, watering the athletic fields with runoff rather than well water (current practice), or building a small wetlands
• Biomass generator for heating campus buildings
• Prairie restoration of large grassy fields (not those used for recreational purposes)
• Sustainable building standards (New Apartment Residence Hall is currently being monitored to see if it is sinking
• Motion-sensors
• Solar heaters
• Wind turbines (built off-campus but to offset the amount of energy Rose derives from coal)

By mid-September, you must have a defined scope of work and a specific client for whom you will develop a proposal, section by section, throughout the semester. To understand this client’s problem, you will interview him or her. Accordingly, all clients must be local (or near your home, which you visit often). Understanding the specific problems, needs, and communication preferences of clients, customers, and managers is an important part of being a successful engineer.

Project Description >>