Student ProjectsSustainable Solutions
Project Manager
Karina Paxton Filoteo
ASCE Sustainable Solutions Team
Amount Requested
$5,000
Summary
Sustainable Solutions provides a real-world building project for students to apply innovative sustainable designs and mechanisms to solve. Provided by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the prompt provides a broad-scoped project, like a data or community center, enabling students to develop their analysis, research, and design skills to fully engineer a planned building proposal. Beyond developing technical skills using CAD, SketchUp, and calculations for final deliverables, members gain a greater understanding of how to implement sustainability into civil engineering practice and how to work as a team across many different disciplines of civil engineering to create the final deliverables.
Planned Activities/Investments
To be fully prepared for the Western Great Lakes ASCE Conference, team meetings consist of training sessions and creation of the final presentation and report. The initial meetings are used to orient new and returning members to the requirements of Sustainable Solution and divide members into various working groups, including site civil, water management, aesthetics, etc., that encompass all aspects of the project. Members are then trained by seasoned members of the team in applications like SketchUp (the required design platform), CAD, civil calculations, common water management strategies, and more. Once the project is released by ASCE in late December, members begin analyzing not only prompt requirements but also state and federal building codes within the chosen building location and current sustainability research applicable to the project. Then, members create a plan for the building(s) physical footprint and additional structural features to aid the project’s sustainability. All members work to create the final report and presentation.
Impact
Sustainable Solutions greatly impacts its members’ technical skills and understanding of sustainable development within civil engineering. Through preparing for competition, members develop skills specific to their subteam through learning how to use design programs, perform calculations, or communicate ideas through writing the report. This growth can be evaluated through the skills members learn in Sustainable Solution that they can apply to later classes, internships, and full-time work as civil engineers. These skills can be evaluated through performance at the conference through feedback and ranking from judges who are professionals in civil and environmental engineering. The conference also highlights how the judges are impacted by Sustainable Solutions. After the team's 2026 presentation, one of the civil engineering judges engaged in a long conversation with one of the team members discussing the use of magnets as a method to improve water cooling for a data center, stating he had never heard of this innovative technology. This illustrates the importance of Sustainable Solutions as a collaborative environment and learning opportunity for students as well as professionals.
Deliverables
The three major deliverables for Sustainable Solutions are a report outlining the proposed solution based on the proposal, a presentation that outlines the main points of the report, and a poster used for a symposium of the team’s work. The report includes building materials, carbon footprint calculations, building(s) structural layout, sustainability analysis, amongst other project details. The presentation is presented by five members of the team and lasts ten minutes, highlighting the important design choices, sustainable mechanisms, and impact of the project on the environment and surrounding society.
Budget Overview
- Hard Colored Poster: $100
- Design Programs: $250
- Round-Trip Flights to Conference in North Dakota (5 members): $2250
- Hotel for Conference (5 members): $600
- Conference Registration Fees (5 members): $750
- Car Rental for Transportation at Conference: $550
- U-Haul (for transportation of poster split with other competition teams): $500
Total Budget Amount: $5,000
Faculty Adviser/Department
Eric Garcia/Civil and Environmental Engineering