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Project Updates for collection: Student Sustainability Committee Funded Projects

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  1. Funding Letter - Illini EcoConcept

    Associated Project(s): 
    Illini EcoConcept
    Student Sustainability Committee (SSC)

    This project funds the Illini EcoConcept team for their efforts to design and manufacture a Hydrogen Fuel Cell Urban Concept Vehicle to compete in the Shell EcoMarathon Competition in 2017. While the competition has always been centered on energy efficiency, it also promotes and rewards innovation that leads to a more sustainable energy system to support communities around the globe. Specifically, in the Urban-Concept Vehicle division, teams compete to have the most efficient vehicle that incorporates many features of real-world cars, such as wet-weather driving ability, headlights, turn indicators, and so on. The Illini EcoConcept has chosen to power their vehicle using hydrogen fuel cell, which has been gaining popularity lately, and is seeking to break the competition efficiency record in the coming school year. The team would like to build on the 2nd place finish in the Americas region last year and be able to compete in the world championship. Specifically, the team strives to (i) promote the use of hydrogen fuel cell as a clean alternative to combustion engines, (ii) build a whole new drivetrain system that would eliminate the causes of inefficiencies found in the previous years, (iii) design and fabricate a lighter chassis and body, and (iv) develop an air-cooling system that would prevent overheating of the system. This proposal directly funds: 1) Parts and Supplies 2) Manufacturing Costs for Custom Modules.

    Attached Files: 

  2. Funding Letter - Illini Formula Electric

    Associated Project(s): 
    Illini Formula Electric
    Student Sustainability Committee (SSC)

    Illini Formula Electric (IFE) is a student organization from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign that participates in the Formula Electric competition, both hosted and sponsored by the Society of Automotive Engineers. The goal of the competition is to design, fabricate, and race an all-electric race car marketed towards the weekend autocross racer. This project provides financial support to construct a fully electric race car, which will produce zero carbon emissions but run as fast as average gasoline race cars. As a green energy and transportation project, Illini Formula Electric is not only training its team members, but also spreading the sustainability concept to more students from all majors and local community members through project showcase events and social media. Much of automotive innovation is driven from racing, and training current team members will help them innovate and develop new efficient concepts after graduation. This proposal directly funds: 1) Parts and Supplies 2) Manufacturing Costs for Custom Modules.

    Attached Files: 

  3. iSEE Collaboratory Agreement

    Associated Project(s): 
    iSEE Collaboratory
    Student Sustainability Committee (SSC)

    At the heart of iSEE’s mission is training students to become the next generation of sustainability leaders. To help fulfill this mission, iSEE will develop a “collaboratory” — a new classroom, conference, collaboration, and communications space next to our offices in the National Soybean Research Center (NSRC). This new complex will include space for experiential learning, a collaboration incubator, and a communications laboratory. Two major facets to iSEE’s instructional mission include a new undergraduate minor in sustainability and a new undergraduate environmental writing certificate. Together, these activities will involve up to ~500 students annually. To serve these students, as well as to provide space for student sustainability groups and other RSOs, we will develop, for the first time, a central Collaboratory designed to facilitate group activities, with state-of-the-art communications capabilities for research, collaboration, and conferencing. By providing advanced teleconferencing capabilities, the collaboratory will also provide access to virtual conferences and webinars for professional development, thus reducing campus carbon emissions derived from travel to offsite conference. This proposal directly funds remaining costs needed to begin the design and renovation process.

     

    Attached Files: 

  4. Funding Letter - KCPA Lobby Lighting

    Associated Project(s): 
    KCPA Lobby Lighting
    Student Sustainability Committee (SSC)

    The Lobby of KCPA is a large 5,000 square foot student-centric multiuse area, arguably one of the most used spaces in one of the most iconic buildings on the campus of U of I Urbana-Champaign. The facility hosts an estimated 200,000 thousand guests, employees, faculty and students every year. The building is nearing its 50th anniversary, and assuring that the functions of the building continue to be upgraded and enhanced to maintain its popularity, frequent usage, and increased sustainable condition in keeping with the campus strategic plan is a priority of the Campus and the College of Fine and Applied Arts. Current fixtures in the KCPA Lobby are older LED technology built into the ceiling with fewer than two years remaining on their life expectancy. The goal of this project would be to replace the existing 560 LED fixtures (32 watts each) with new LED fixtures (18 watts each) that have the advantage of long term fixture life and with the added advantage of simply unscrewing an old LED lamp after 10 years or so and screwing in a new LED lamp. The need to replace fixtures after another 10 years will have been negated, and now the operations personnel of the building will be able to replace the lamps as needed for decades to come. This proposal directly funds: 1) LED fixtures, lamps, and controls 2) Field programming 3) Labor from skilled trades to remove old units and install new ones.

    Attached Files: 

  5. Funding Letter - Raw Water Metering

    Associated Project(s): 
    BIF Greywater Pipe System
    Student Sustainability Committee (SSC)

    The Business Instructional Facility (BIF) was constructed with a separate raw water system that conveys non-potable water for the purpose of flushing toilets. While the system is in place, it was never connected to an outside source of non potable water largely due to current non-progressive plumbing codes. Metering the raw water system at BIF would provide data about the temporal total and non-potable water demand in a typical class/office building. F&S installed a temporary meter to measure flow to the raw water system and operated this meter for approximately one month between April and May 2016, which yielded promising results. In particular, for the month that the meter was in place, results indicated about 2/3 of the water used in BIF was for the non-potable lines. Because building usage can vary dramatically during the year, it is recommended to install a meter permanently. Once the meter is installed, the data is intended to be used to support changes to plumbing codes, allowing raw water to be used more easily, as well as changes to the campus construction codes, requiring that separate raw water systems be installed in new buildings and during major renovations of existing ones. This proposal directly funds: 1) An additional meter for the BIF Raw Water line 2) Installation costs.

    Attached Files: 

  6. Project Paplet Agreement

    Associated Project(s): 
    Project Paplet
    Student Sustainability Committee (SSC)

    Project Paplet began in Malaysia as a paper recycling campaign aiming to take once-used paper and turn it into recycled notebooks for children in need. Localizing the project to the University of Illinois, students from the Society of Women Engineers will be collecting used paper from campus departments and producing hundreds of paplets to be donated to the on-campus Child Development Laboratory for use by the pupils. This project aims to educate the public on the social impact that recycling can have on the community. It also aims to increase awareness on the uses of recycled paper beyond its traditional applications. This proposal directly funds: 1) Spiral binding equipment 2) Supplies and cardstock.

    Attached Files: 

  7. Residential Native Plants

    Associated Project(s): 
    LAR Native Plants
    Student Sustainability Committee (SSC)

    The Lincoln Avenue Residence Hall Living and Learning Community (LLC) is aware of the interest in increasing the number of campus locations with native plants. They would like to join the effort to plant Native Plant Species in selected areas around Campus. The goal of this project is to locate plants in places like the unused space between Allen Hall and Lincoln Ave. Residence. There are several other locations around these residences that are suitable for planting near the buildings and in areas where mowing is difficult because of corners and the placing of equipment like large compressors. By selecting a variety of plants that bloom over the growing season, this project provides habitat and food resources for a wide range of butterflies, bees, and other pollinators as well as birds. This proposal directly funds: 1) One Student Internship 2) Site Preparation Costs 3) Soil Supplies and Plants.

    Attached Files: 

  8. Funding Letter - Root to Roof

    Associated Project(s): 
    Root to Roof Program
    Student Sustainability Committee (SSC)

    Root to Roof is a program established to educate students about the sustainability and availability of urban wood for the design and fabrication of furniture, outdoor installations, homes and buildings. It does this through harvesting waste timber from campus and the City of Urbana and milling it to become usable lumber. Milling material locally produces hundreds of pounds of CO2 annually compared to tens of thousands to buy the same material from all over the USA. This also allows the Root to Roof program to utilize otherwise useful material for beneficial projects instead of that very same material being shredded into mulch. This creates a net gain of carbon sequestration locally. As this program expands it will be setting progressive goals for sustainability and urban wood utilization through selling wood back to the F&S Mill and Carpentry shops for use campus wide and using this material to fabricate indoor and outdoor items for campus use. This proposal directly funds: 1) Milling Equipment 2) Facility Upgrades to Accommodate New Equipment 3) Student Labor for Fabrication Coordination and Training.

    Attached Files: 

  9. Science Policy Workshop Agreement

    Associated Project(s): 
    Science Policy Workshop
    Student Sustainability Committee (SSC)

    The Science Policy wants to educate students how to effectively interact with policy makers, as well as advocate for continual science research funding. Funding is an inherently policy-based process as it is determined by legislators, but conversely it is the lifeblood of fundamental research and academic innovation. Sustainability, and therefore its funding, is at the heart of science policy, as it relies on the intersection of science for developing new technologies and the public sphere which determines its implementation. A workshop will allow direct engagement with STEM students on how to prepare themselves to speak with policymakers and lobby on behalf of academia as a whole and science and research specifically. This proposal directly funds: 1) Room rental costs 2) Honorarium for speakers.

    Attached Files: 

  10. Funding Letter - SAFS Juice Phase 1

    Associated Project(s): 
    Sustainable Agricultural Food System
    Student Sustainability Committee (SSC)

    This project is a significant expansion of the current local food partnership existing between the Student Sustainable Farm (SSF), Multifunctional Woody Perennial Polyculture (MWP), FSHN Pilot Processing Plant (PPP), and UIUC Dining. Presently the Sustainable Agriculture Food System grows, processes, and serves on campus a variety of tomato sauces (pizza sauce is served across campus) and hot sauce. Soon, the Sustainable Agriculture Food System will add a whole wheat flour milling line. It have a very successful and growing program to provide quality, sustainable, and local food products and education to the UIUC students. This particular project will focus on the addition of a fresh juice processing line that will be able to handle a wide array of fruits and vegetables, packaged into an array of containers from single serving to bulk. As with the other projects, this partnership has no funding for large capital equipment expenditures, and relies on grants to increase our capacity. Dining Services is a strong partner in our project and has agreed to provide a grant to help with the purchase of items needed to produce fresh juice products including a harvester for fruit from the MWP site. The full proposal requested both juice extraction and juice bottling equipment. This phase of funding only covers the extraction and pasteurization equipment. This proposal directly funds: 1) Juice Extraction Equipment 2) Fruit Storage Containers 3) Pasteurization Equipment.

    Attached Files: 

  11. SAFS Phase 2 Agreement

    Associated Project(s): 
    Sustainable Agricultural Food System
    Student Sustainability Committee (SSC)

    This project is a significant expansion of the current local food partnership existing between the Student Sustainable Farm (SSF), Multifunctional Woody Perennial Polyculture (MWP), FSHN Pilot Processing Plant (PPP), and UIUC Dining. Presently the Sustainable Agriculture Food System grows, processes, and serves on campus a variety of tomato sauces (pizza sauce is served across campus) and hot sauce. Soon, the Sustainable Agriculture Food System will add a whole wheat flour milling line. It have a very successful and growing program to provide quality, sustainable, and local food products and education to the UIUC students. This particular project will focus on the addition of a fresh juice processing line that will be able to handle a wide array of fruits and vegetables, packaged into an array of containers from single serving to bulk. As with the other projects, this partnership has no funding for large capital equipment expenditures, and relies on grants to increase its capacity. Dining Services is a strong partner in this project and has agreed to provide a grant to help with the purchase of items needed to produce fresh juice products including a harvester for fruit from the MWP site. The full proposal requested both juice extraction and juice bottling equipment. This phase of funding covers remaining bottling equipment costs. All bottles will feature messaging urging students to recycle and spotlighting sustainable goals and outcomes This proposal directly funds: 1) Bottling equipment 2) Some associated supplies.

    Attached Files: 

  12. Funding Letter - Geothermal TRT

    Associated Project(s): 
    Geothermal Test Well at Energy Farm
    Student Sustainability Committee (SSC)

    The applied for funding will be used in the construction of a Thermal Response Test unit for use in the Geothermal Pilot project that is currently being implemented on the UIUC Campus. The overall goal of the project is to assess the viability of geothermal heat exchange on this campus as well as the best implementation of this technology. The Thermal response test unit will measure the ability of the local geology to support geothermal heat exchange in the future. The unit will be designed to be used in all future geothermal projects. This project is student-led, and development and construction of the Thermal Response Test Unit will be conducted entirely by University of Illinois students. This proposal directly funds: 1) Construction Supplies 2) Transportation Costs.

    Attached Files: 

  13. Funding Letter - Bike Maintenance Instructor

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center
    Student Sustainability Committee (SSC)
    Mechanics Classes at the Campus Bike Center

    Since 2010, The Bike Project has been collaborating with the University of Illinois to provide an educational space on campus. Bicycle education taught through that space encourages the campus community to ride bicycles for transportation because the bicycles sold and worked on at the Campus Bike Center are reliable and safe. While some people are willing to volunteer to teach advanced level bicycle repair classes at the Bike Center, few are willing to teach very basic entry-level classes addressing such issues as adjusting brakes, lubricating chains, and fixing flat tires. This project funds two semesters of stipend for an instructor to teach classes at the Bike Center covering these topics. Combined class capacity over the two semesters would exceed 200 new cyclists. This proposal directly funds: 1) Two semesters of labor for a beginner-level bicycle class.

    Attached Files: 

  14. Weekly update for Zero Waste

    Associated Project(s): 
    Achieve Zero Waste

    Hello all,

    Last week’s zero waste activity was a conference call to talk about messaging and campus presentations about source separation. The immediate plan is for me to outline a presentation this coming week.

    Sincerely,

    Marya Ryan
    Zero Waste Coordinator

     

  15. Biomass Boiler Open House

    Associated Project(s): 
    Biomass Boiler at the Energy Farm

    REMINDER: The Energy Farm at Illinois and the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE) invite you to attend:

    Illinois Energy Farm Open House 
    & Biomass Boiler Ribbon Cutting

    1-3 p.m.

    Wednesday, June 21, 2017

    Illinois Energy Farm 
    (4110 S. Race St., Urbana)

     

    DSC_0224.jpeg
    In celebration of the completed installation of the Farm's state-of-the-art Heizomat biomass boiler, we invite you to tour the newly-built boiler facilities and meet Heizomat representatives.

    Refreshments will be served. Please let us know you are coming so we can plan accordingly!

    Click here to RSVP today!!

  16. Weekly Update

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All, last week was uneventful—in a good way. People came, worked on their bikes and/or purchased one, and then left. We had 123 visitors. We netted $1,226.60. We sold: 5 bikes for $640; 1 Build-a-Bike for $84; 6 memberships for $180; 16 tires/tubes/wheels for $111.

    Last week we had what felt like a surplus of volunteers—and inexperienced ones at that. I think at one point there were 8 people in the shop, all staff/volunteers. I will have to do a better job of creating manageable tasks for unskilled labor.

    One longtime member of the Bike Project came by last week to bid farewell, as he got a job in Washington state. He was very thankful for what we do at CBC/TBP and expressed concern over finding a place in Washington as nice and helpful as we are. In parting, he donated some nice studded winter tires since, as he said, it doesn’t snow in the pacific northwest.

    This week I will tackle establishing a manageable system for organizing the pile of bikes in the back. I think sorting by “Starting Price” would be useful, since that is always the first question asked. It would speed up the process and save me some of the anxiety of people pawing around in a potentially dangerous pile of bikes. This week, I will also create more zero-bike-knowledge tasks that volunteers can accomplish without me having to explain the esoterica of bike “standards”. And, of course, bikes will be built.

    Sincerely,

    Jake Benjamin

    Campus Bike Center Manage

  17. Weekly update for Zero Waste

    Associated Project(s): 
    Achieve Zero Waste

    Hello all,

    Here are my updates from last week:

    • Answered inquiries from Fisher Scientific on progress on glove recycling; Morgan and I will touch base this coming week to get things moving on that effort again
    • Met with Morgan and Olivia Harris to discuss messaging to promote source separation
    • Contacted Dawn Aubrey to set up a meeting to discuss Housing’s role in recycling, particularly with regard to glass and gloves

    Sincerely,

    Marya Ryan
    Zero Waste Coordinator

     

  19. Weekly Update

    Associated Project(s): 
    Campus Bike Center

    All, last week was the first steadily and surely busy week we’ve had this summer. Within the first hour or so we were at capacity stand-wise all five days last week. We had 119 visitors and there were probably a dozen or so more people that we missed.

    Our sales for the week: Grossed $799.50; sold 10 memberships for $300; one refurbished bike for $50; 21 tires/tubes (new and used) for $113. While those numbers belie the visitors count, we did have a good amount of used cables/parts sales, indicating a healthy usage of the space that simply doesn’t translate into high dollar amounts. It probably didn’t help that most of our medium-sized stock of refurbished bikes has already sold out, leaving our small and large bikes only. That will be a focus for the coming week as far as shop builds are concerned.

    Last Friday we had the Full Moon Bicycle Ride, a community social ride that I heavily advertised and promoted—so much so that a few people thought the Bike Project/University was sponsoring it. Rough conservative estimates tallied 160 or so people, so it was probably closer to 200. It was an affirming experience to see so many people coming out for such an event and really speaks to the strong presence of cycling in Champaign-Urbana. I lost count of how many people I recognized as visitors to the Campus Bike Center. Impressive, too, was how many folks were not decked out in full-on cycling gear but instead riding commuter-level bikes in the same clothes in which you’d walk your dog. That speaks strongly to the normalization of riding a bicycle and a good sign for the growth of the mode share.

    The temperature is projected to be in the 90s all week and so I will bring out the big water cooler, fill it with ice and be diligent in telling all visitors to stay hydrated while here. I will build more medium-sized bikes this week as well as continue to free up space by scrapping more old and abused-beyond-repair bikes and parts.

    Sincerely,

    • Jake Benjamin
      Campus Bike Center Manager

  20. Understanding spring flowers on campus

    Associated Project(s): 
    Increase Pollinator-Friendly Areas

    Superintendent of Grounds, Ryan Welch, describes the difference in heat tolerance between spring and summer flowers on campus:

    "We plant the early flowers (pansies) because they provide early spring color and are one of the only annuals that prefer cooler temps and will withstand frost.  The early or cool season annuals do not like heat, so they are removed and replaced with the summer annuals.  The summer annuals will not tolerate even a light frost and should not be planted before May 1."

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