You are here

Project Updates for collection: Living Lab Facilities / Programs

Search

Search tips:

  • This form will search for words in the title OR the description. If you would like to search for the same term(s) across both the title and description, enter the same search term(s) in both fields.
  • This form will search for any of the words you enter in a field, not the exact phrase you enter. If you would like to search for an exact phrase, put double quotes (") around the phrase. For example, if you search for Bike Path you will get results containing either the word Bike OR the word Path, but if you search for "Bike Path" you will get results containing the exact phrase Bike Path.

  1. Daily update

    Associated Project(s): 
    Geothermal Monitoring Well on Bardeen Quad

    Hi everyone,

    We had a successful day 2 after deicing the system. We are now down to 165 feet and heading into the oldest glacial strata. If you are following along with the log I sent, we are about 170 feet on it.

    We will start up again Monday morning.

    Best,

    Andy

  2. daily update

    Associated Project(s): 
    Geothermal Monitoring Well on Bardeen Quad

    Hi everyone,

     

    After day 1 we have drilled to a depth of 90 feet. This is excellent progress with snow much of the day, and not getting in the ground until late morning.

    So far, the geology is similar to previous drilling in the area (see log attached).

     

    Cheers,

    Andy

  5. Weekly Update

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center
    Bike Share with Veo

    All, Winter is upon us! Visitor numbers are still relatively high, considering the cold weather, which is a great sign. We have one student in every week who’s still plugging away at his B-a-B. Most others have abandoned them and I have had the staff reclaim them as shop builds.

     

    Last week I finished and delivered the bike that’ll be raffled off at the Staff Appreciation Week. I worked up a checklist for the future days when I’ll need the student staff to run open hours for me. Safety checked a few more bikes and worked on inventory.

     

    This week I’ll need to begin looking at reallocating space for how many shop builds we have. Most of the front area of the shop is all for-sale bikes so now we’ll need to start a row in the back.

     

    I’ll also be getting in touch with VeoRide about a possible partnership for getting more people on bikes.

     

    The numbers:

    Visitors: 58
    Sales: $61
    Memberships:  1 for $30

     

    Thanks!

    • Jake Benjamin
      Campus Bike Center Manager

     

  7. Funding Approval for Geothermal Characterization/Monitoring Station

    Associated Project(s): 
    Geothermal Monitoring Well on Bardeen Quad
    Utilize Carbon Credits
    Carbon Credit Purchasing Program (C2P2) with Second Nature

    Evan De Lucia and Mohamed Attalla approved $65,610 of funding from the Carbon Credit Sales Fund for a Geothermal Characterization/Monitoring Station at John Bardeen Quad.

     

    An email of approval is attached below.

    The project proposal is attached below.

    Attached Files: 

  8. NEW THINGS

    Associated Project(s): 
    Eco-Olympics
    Recruited organization team, dinner with Hillel, working on getting sponsors for the spring comptetition
    Be part of the Freezer Challenge, send emails, help promote

  10. WHATS HAPPENING?

    Associated Project(s): 
    Sustainable Student Farm
    Educate Future Leaders

    Producing 25000 lbs. of tomatoes,

    now have classes there looking to work with university to teach about plants! 

    economically sustaining our own building,

    looking to expand to a new location! 

    Strong producer for the campus, and excited to grow more!

  11. WHATS EXCITING?

    Associated Project(s): 
    LAR Native Plants
     Largely completed, ongoing main
    Very Well, Student intern keeps plants going, native prairie plants on south side of building, front and courtyard, woodland garden, northeast corner 
    FS mows it every years, little weeding
     suffering from invasion of violets, thought given to aiding those plants
    Coming along well, over 3 years, removed invasive honey suckle, so thick you could not walk though the woods, removing other invasive plants, put out seeds and seedlings to other native plants, used as outdoor lab for variety of classes

  12. Weekly Update

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All,  No big news for the last week. We had Thanksgiving break and were closed all last week. The week prior was pretty slow, too.

     

    Biggest news: Yesterday the shop was staffed by the student workers and they appear to have done a fantastic job. The shop is clean and organized, they tallied and tracked visitors and volunteer time nicely. No trouble. Next up will be training the staff to run hours when I’m not here in the summer when it’s really busy. I don’t have the infrastructure in place to do that yet but we’ll get there.

    This week I’ll be delivering the bike we built for Campus Recreation’s Student Staff Appreciation Week, building shop bikes, and working on documenting skills training and assessment for the student staff so that I’ll be able to better track their progress and abilities to do the job going forward.  

     

    Visitors: 45

    Sales: $101
    Memberships: 2 for $60

    Misc. used parts: 7 for $41

     

    Thanks!

     

    • Jake Benjamin
      Campus Bike Center Manager

  13. Weekly Update

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All, Slow last week, as to be expected.

    Currently have 8 bikes for sale with a couple more queued up. Should have about 15 ready to go by end of the week.

    Instead of having student workers build bikes piecemeal, this week I’ll try having each staffer be responsible for a bike—basically just a B-a-B but for sale. The hope here is that it will be a more holistic and teachable situation seeing a bike through from start to finish, just as the B-a-B program is. I tried this with one staffer last week and he was noticeably more engaged and hustling by the end, trying to get the bike done. It’ll help that we won’t have to figure out “what’s been done?” when each staffer comes in for their shift, too.

     

    This week will be building bikes, organizing, and drafting student staff training guides.

     

    The numbers:

    Visitors: 62
    Sales: $235.50
    Memberships: 5 for $150
    Tire/tubes: 4 for $25

     

    Thanks!

     

    • Jake Benjamin
      Campus Bike Center Manager

     

  17. Weekly Update

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center
    Collection and Donation of Abandoned Bicycles

    All, Last week was quite slow, as the sales numbers confirm. It’s been great to be able to keep the student staff on even as we slow down as I can train them better. Running through repairs and assembly of some of the more intricate bicycle componentry is a boon to them and myself—more skilled student workers makes for a better shop experience for all.

     

    Big news of the week: Warehouse is empty of bikes—finally! This morning I’ll head over there to sweep up the last of the debris and straighten up. Working Bikes was thankful for the donations and some of the bikes are already in El Salvador and others will make their way to Lesotho, South Africa. A big thanks to Hank, Rick, Rafael, Todd, and APO for their assistance loading bikes.

     

    This week I’ll be moving on hiring 2-3 more student workers, building bikes, ordering, inventory, and shop design/organization.

     

    The numbers:

    Visitors: 62
    Sales: $139.00
    Memberships: 1 for $30

    Tire/tubes: 4 for $15

     

    Thanks!

     

    Jake Benjamin
    Campus Bike Center Manager

  18. Illini Union dashboard

    Associated Project(s): 
    Energy Dashboard Project

    Hi Becky,

     

    As I mentioned yesterday at the Sustainability Celebration, we have developed HTML web pages for embedding into FourWinds digital signage so you can demonstrate or monitor your daily and weekly electricity usage.  Here at the physical plant building, we have them built into a frame that toggles between the two web pages.  You have to create a frame with a titel like “Electricity Usage – Illini Union”, embed the html, and then add a button to switch between the two sites.  Unfortunately, the person who did this for us has moved to another job, so I can’t help you on the FourWinds programming.  But I know that there are ways to display web pages.  Here are the links to the pages we created for the Illini Union.  We’d really like to see you guys put something like this up on your digital signage.  

     

    Day version:

    https://ednaweb.illinienergy.illinois.edu/post/IUnion/graph.html

     

    Week Version:

    https://ednaweb.illinienergy.illinois.edu/post/IUnion/graph.html?week

     

    If you would like more information, feel free to give me a call over here at F&S.

     

     

    Mike Marquissee

    Director – Budget and Planning Resources

    Utilites and Energy Services Division

    Facilities and Services

    University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

  19. Weekly update

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center
    Collection and Donation of Abandoned Bicycles

    Last week was really relaxed in the shop. I’ve been able to dedicate some time to training the student staff a little better. Having them strip and build bikes is good repetition and practice for them.

     

    Tuesday was the Bike Shipping Event, which did not go as planned. Working Bikes wasn’t able to get their big container down here so they only took 260 bikes. That was compounded by a poor showing of volunteers to help. Most of the loading was done by two Working Bikes people and myself, which was tiring. By the second half, we had 5 or 6 people to help.

     

    On Friday, Todd and I pulled about 60 bikes out of the warehouse. We should have it all cleared by end-of-week.

    I interviewed two students last week as well. I have another interview tomorrow.

     

    This week is the aforementioned job interview, as well as an iCap interview with someone from Sustainability. Mornings will be loading bikes at the warehouse and most shop hours will be spent teaching the staff more bike skills now that it’s slow.

     

    The numbers:

    Visitors: 73

    Sales: $430.25
    Memberships: 4 for $120
    Bikes (B-a-B): 2 for $40*
    Tires/tubes: 10 for $84

    *B-a-B pricing are now itemized to reflect the cost of new parts so TBP can keep better track of stock and sales of new parts. B-a-Bs aren’t cheaper, they’re just recorded as the base price only.

     

    Thanks!

    • Jake Benjamin
      Campus Bike Center Manager

Pages