Fall 2015
Meeting #1 – September 25, 2015
- First meeting of the year!
- Today we introduced the project timeline for the year which entails fundraising, designing, and cultural preparation for the trip
- We are awaiting news from the Duke Lemur Center to hear from the community which project they would most prefer and benefit from
- Ideas include: toilet, rainwater catchment system, fuel efficient cookstove production, school building
- We began initial fundraising brainstorming and sited sources from the web in a spreadsheet
Meeting #2 – October 8, 2015
- Today we learned that our project is a RAINWATER CATCHMENT SYSTEM! The on the ground team in Madagascar talked to various community leaders about the effectiveness of various projects and concluded that a rainwater catchment system will have a great impact.
- The team in Madagascar visited a Japanese built rain catchment at the EPP (primary school) in Betsakotsako village and provided pictures for our aid.
- The village that we are likely to be working with is adjacent to the Marojejy National Park, which has close access to the main road and is close in proximity to a Duke Global Health Program.
- DEID Brazil constructed a rainwater catchment system in previous years which we began using as a resource.
- Today we each researched article(s) online about the design and implementation of rainwater catchment systems in the developing world.
- We are soon to identify team positions such as secretary, website manager, design team, and fundraising team.
Meeting #3 – October 25, 2015
- Today we briefly reviewed the appendix from DEID Brazil’s rainwater catchment system and began brainstorming ways make their system fit Madagascar and overall improve it.
- We discussed how we will create both a cylindrical and a rectangular design and see which one will work better for the ground in Madagascar once we actually travel there.
- We also discussed how for future meetings we will need to know the size of the tank, how much water can fill inside of it, and how much rain will actually get into the tank so that we will be able to make calculations and also determine the gutter sizes.
- We overviewed what our each of our designs will end up looking like, based off of DEID Brazil’s 2015 design.
Meeting #4 – November 5, 2015
- Discussed design:
- Need to find out more about the site (topography, rainfall)
- Must decide concrete or bricks ( If concrete, need calculations for thickness)
- Fundraising: Tijuana Flats (11/18) –> Publicize on Facebook, make sure to print and hand out flyers to friends/ possibly patrons outside of the restaurant
- Grants: Everyone needs to do research on grants. Pick one which you qualify for and begin an application to grants (everyone apply for the grant they researched). Start applications before the next meeting.
- Learn Malagasy at PeaceCorps, LiveLingua or Youtube.
Meeting #5 – November 20, 2015
- Meeting with Dr. Schaad:
- He will be teaching CEE 315 (engineering design class) where rain catchment will be designed
- He will give us the Fund Code soon to continue our funding efforts
- Every person of the group explained the grants they had researched, we will continue to work on these and make a Google document to collaborate on the applications. Some of the possible grants include:
- Dean Summer Research Fellowship Grant
- LEAP Grant
- Davis Project for Peace Grant
- GEF Small Grants Program
- More updates on the trip:
- 5-8 weeks early in the summer, the rainwater catchment system should only take around 3 weeks giving us time to do the site assessment.
- Potentially sharing campsite with Duke Global Health
- Working in Manantenina
- Applications will be sent out on Monday/Tuesday and interviews will be the week before exams.
Meeting #6 – January 30, 2015
- There will be two projects going on in Madagascar: the rainwater catchment system and a thermo-electric generator.
- We will take a model of the thermo-electric generator over this summer and see how it goes
- We hope to be able to establish some sort of system where we help find material local to Madagascar so that local people can build these thermos-electric generators themselves
- The design of both the thermos-electric generator and the rainwater catchment system will be primarily completed in Dr. Schaad’s CEE 315 class; they will hold weekly meetings on Mondays at 12:30pm where all DEID members can attend to hear about and contribute to the projects.
