Elections!

Congratulations to our new board members! From their speeches, they had great new ideas for the upcoming year so I'm definitely looking forward to it!

Since elections took up most of our time, we had a brief project meeting. Tentatively, next week we will be having a work day to practice mixing concrete instead of our regular meeting. It will most likely be between Engineering I and Engineering V where the ASCE concrete canoe work area is located. So come prepared to do some mixing! Also, we found out that Simpson Strong-tie does not have strong-ties located in Nicaragua which means we may have to find another construction company who has the material we need in Nicaragua and is willing to donate. Lastly, our maintenance and construction manual is still in progress and we're going to continue to look for grants that we can apply for so we can travel this summer.

Structural Discussion and PCC

During Tuesday's meeting, it was an exciting time for nominations! Members nominated other members to the positions of president, internal/external vice president, treasurer, secretary, etc. If you were not able to make it out to the meeting but wanted to nominate yourself or someone else, you will still be able to next week right before our elections. The best way to be more involved in EWB is through a leadership position!

After splitting into our respective groups, we discussed traveling (most likely September) and grants (keep looking!). Then half the team went up to the white board to discuss building design plans and the other half of the team stayed to work on the pairwise comparison chart that we started last week. The results of the PCC showed that safety (obviously) was our highest priority. Our next task is to rank our categories for each priority. Example: for roofing, we have three options: metal, painted metal, and plastic; we rank each option in terms of safety, environmental sustainability, costs of maintenance, etc. We didn't finish filling out the chart since most of us were not experts on the benefits and disadvantages of metal versus plastic, but we did our best!

Lastly, we also discussed the possiblity of having our work day (practicing mixing concrete) on May 3 which is a Tuesday. Instead of our regular meeting, we would have our work day! This is a great way to get some hands-on experience and take a break from studying for midterms. Just a heads up that our "meeting" that day will probably be for 2 hours!

Pairwise Comparison Chart

In this week's meeting, we did a lot of voting! The purpose of our voting was to fill out a Pairwise Comparison Chart (PCC) which is a method of determining what objectives should have the highest priority. There were seven priorities that we had- ease of maintenance (for up-keeping the schoolhouse), sustainability, safety, and ease of transportation (in regards to bringing the material to the village) just to name a few. At times, it was difficult to vote because both choices had good arguments such as ease of maintenance versus cost of maintenance. Other times it was not hard to make a decision; for example, safety always received the most votes when compared to any other category. The results of our PCC will be announced next week and we will be able to know how our priorities rank and thus, focus on what is most important.

All the voting we did will help prepare us for EWB elections coming up! Next week will be nominations and the following week will be the elections. Anyone interested in being a leader in EWB should consider running for a position!

Just Getting Ready for September

Our trip to Nicaragua has been postponed from June to September so up til then we are just getting ready! That means continuing raising funds by applying for grants, finalizing our designs, completing travel forms, and having work days to practice mixing concrete and basic construction techniques. We are also working on compiling our own maintenance and construction manuals. The maintenance manual will be simple consisting of how-to's for basic problems that may arise. We plan to get ideas from home improvement stores such as Home Depot and Lowe's which offer fix-it advice and instructions. Lastly, during our meeting, we were reminded of our need to raise money for our project. All of us are going to bring three grants to next week's meeting!

And Spring Quarter Begins!

Our first meeting of the quarter was exciting with several new students interested in joining Project S.E.D. After introductions that even consisted of an icebreaker question, we discussed the EWB-USA grant. This grant is a great opportunity for us to receive much needed funding for our project. Another thing on our to-do list is making a construction and maintenance manual. These manuals will be helpful for the community members in Las Brenas. So several of us will be writing the manual, finding helpful pictures and diagrams, and of course translating our instructions into Spanish. Also coming up this quarter, we will have at least one session in training for the trip. We will be able to practice possibly digging a footing, mixing concrete, and working with wood. Project S.E.D. faces an exciting new quarter!