Archive for
May, 2010
The senior capstone design studio SEEDR has been advising this Spring has concluded with exciting results. The studio consisted of teams of mechanical engineering, industrial design and architecture students working on humanitarian design projects.
The project included a water acquisition and distribution for Nicaragua, a net-zero energy health care clinic for Tunisia, a net zero energy stand alone vaccine cold room for Tunisia, a vaccine cool box, a birthing kit for Papua New Guinea, and an immunization and well-being health care post kit for Papua New Guinea.
These teams went on to compete against thirty-six other teams in the Spring 2010 Mechanical Engineering Senior Capstone Design Expo at Georgia Tech, winning the top four honors in the process.
SEEDR would like to thank Dr. Colton and Sabir Khan for the opportunity to participate in what was an invigorating and enlightening experience. While SEEDR advised on multidisciplinary research and design methods and commercialization, SEEDR learned a great deal from the instructors, other advisors, and students alike.
The success and excitement surrounding the humanitarian and development-centered design studio is a promising sign for expanding the work across the Institute and SEEDR looks forward to participating again next term.
Also, SEEDR and its partners would like to wish the graduating seniors the best of luck in their careers as they continue to sharpen their skills for redesigning global development.
The final reports and presentations are available for download here.
SEEDR is invited by the Tennenbaum Institute at Georgia Tech to participate in a “Summer Project on Smart Grid.” Participants include graduate students from the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech and Dr. William B. Rouse of the Tennenbaum Institute. The course will be hosted by the Tennenbaum Institute from May 17 through July 26.
The Smart Grid project will focus on consumer embrace of the Smart Grid including how to empower, enable, and motivate consumers to actively participate in the Smart Grid. The cost of such an initiative is enormous and the expected return on this investment is highly dependent on consumer acceptance of managing their own use of electricity and the technology and systems that enable electricity management. The course is also expected to consider the intelligent design of other utilities such as gas and water.
A recent report from Accenture entitled Understanding Consumer Preferences in Energy Efficiency surveyed more than 9,000 energy customers in seventeen countries that suggests there is considerable opposition to smart meters and other smart grid technologies promise to provide households with real-time data on their energy use and allow energy firms to reduce peak demand by automatically turning off non-essential appliances. Consumers simply do not trust the energy companies to commercialize their usage data. As understandable as this may seem, this presents tremendous opportunities for third-party providers to provide solutions.
“Consumer acceptance of the Smart Grid is centered on the cost of adopting new technologies; pervasiveness and user interface of those technologies; and consumer privacy and security,” said Donald Moreland, SEEDR Director. “Despite consumer skepticism, a tremendous opportunity exists for companies with emerging technologies and business models to bridge the gap between the consumer and industry.”
SEEDR’s work in Smart Grid includes the development of collaborative program initiatives that endorse open architecture, plug-and-play components, open standards, and promote interoperability. SEEDR brings together the philanthropy, business leaders, policy makers, and academia in a consortium of stakeholders to initiate small-scale Smart Grid pilot programs and assist in applying results to large-scale implementation. “This is a great opportunity for SEEDR to collaborate with the Tennenbaum Institute and talented graduate students from the top industrial and systems engineering program in the country.”
