Rice University Engineers Without Borders

RECENT EVENTS

Alief Middle School Students Build Mousetrap Cars with Rice-EWB Members

On March 14, members of Rice-EWB began working with students at Alief Middle School a mouse trap car project as part of Students Engineers Educating Kids (SEEK), a program designed to introduce middle school students to engineering. The project will continue through May and culminate in a final race car competition among the students.

Rice EWB and CEVE Department Collaboration with Colombian University

In July 2007, Rice-EWB Presidents Joe Mendez and Ketan Shah traveled to Bogota, Colombia with the Rice University Civil and Environmental Engineering Department to help create a partnership with La Universidad de los Andes in Bogota. While the collaboration focused on creating mutual research efforts between the two universities, Joe and Ketan met several times with university faculty and students to discuss the possibility of setting up an engineering service organization at the university. Over the course of the talks, they spoke about chapter organization, roles of faculty and student members, fundraising, and possible types of projects. In addition to these general discussion topics, Joe and Ketan offered insight into different methods of sustainable water purification for a potential project the future organization will be working on. Upon leaving Colombia, the groups agreed to participate in future collaborations as both organizations continue to grow.

Rice-EWB Students' Article Published in International Network for Engineering Education and Research Journal

Four Rice-EWB students recently published an article in the International Network for Engineering Education and Research (iNEER) Journal. The article was in the 2007 Special Volume: Innovations 2007 - World Innovation in Edcuation and Research issue. Click HERE for the article (file in PDF format).

Award Received at 2007 EWB-USA International Conference

At the 2007 EWB-USA International Conference, the Nicaragua II team received a $1000 award for "Most Appropriate Technology," for their work designing and building a green health clinic. The clinic was built out strawbales, local lumber and bamboo, and stuccoed with natural earth adobe.

Sally Ride Festival

On Saturday, October 27, members of Rice Engineers Without Borders took some time off from digging ditches and pouring concrete to talk to over 1200 middle school aged girls about the wonders of math and science. Rice University was host to the Sally Ride Science festival for the second year in a row. Alongside other organization's booths, EWB members explained different methods of low cost water purification, and how to perform water tests. For more information, click HERE for the Houston Chronicle story about the event.

Rice-EWB VPs Speak at 6th Annual Conference on Poverty

On November 17, 2007, Russ Ehlinger and Tim Burke, the two Rice-EWB vice-presidents, spoke at the 6th Annual Conference on Poverty in Santa Barbara, California. The conference was focused on the connections between poverty and the environment. Russ and Tim spoke about the organization of EWB at Rice, as well as highlighting the Nicaragua II team's experience with green building in the developing world. For more information about the conference, click HERE.

Check back for updates!