Frijolillo

The word "frijolillo" may be hard to pronounce but we are excited to say it! Frijolillo is a tropical hardwood that we recently discovered is sustainable, meets our building standards, and is found in Nicaragua! It is used as a substitute for Cumaru, another hardwood, but frijolillo has all the same valuable qualities as Cumaru. We are very happy that we will be able to use such an ideal material that is environmentally friendly and has the right strength properties so we can construct a stable structure. If you want to learn more about frijolillo or other sustainable wood materials check out http://www.nicaraguahardwoods.com/products/S4S%20Frijolillo%20FAS(Cumaru%20substitute).php

And we are still applying for grants hoping to get enough funding so we can travel this summer. Furthermore, our NGO contact, Marvin, has informed us that the community has been eager for us to start construction on the schoolhouse.

Midterms, Marvin, MOU

Tuesday's meeting saw a decrease in attendance which we blame midterm season for. However, we were still able to have a successful meeting. Karen, who corresponds with our NGO contact in Nicaragua named Marvin, gave us an update that Marvin had given her. Marvin reported that the families in the community are using our latrines! The latrines are basically bathrooms that have chemicals added to the waste to turn it into fertilizer which is helpful since the community is mostly agricultural. Currently, in addition to the schoolhouse, we are working on improvements we can make to the latrines. Marvin also informed us that it is better to transport materials to the village during rainy season because the river will have enough water to make it easy to bring the supplies in the boats. We concluded the meeting with ideas on how to make our MOU (Memorandum of understanding) with the people of Las Brenas more detailed. It is important that once the schoolhouse is completed that it will be well maintained and that there be guidelines on its use.
Keep working on grants so we can fund the schoolhouse!

523, 524, 525

In order for us to continue Project S.E.D and go to Nicaragua, there are three forms that we have to fill out- 523 Alternatives Analysis Report, 524 Preliminary Design Report, and 525 Pre-Implementation Report. We have divided these reports into smaller parts to be more efficient in completing them on time.
Meanwhile, the design phase seems to be near the end with just a few more things to finish up like drawing it up on CAD (Computer-Aided Design). Speaking of CAD, some members of the Nicaragua team went about two weekends ago to a CAD workshop at UCLA to get some basic knowledge of how to CAD. So hopefully we learned enough to apply our newfound skills to our schoolhouse.

Finishing up the design!

In last Friday's design meeting, Eugene explained how we needed to analyze the schoolhouse's structure (specifically the roof truss) by calculating the load for different scenarios like if there was an earthquake, hurricane, someone on the roof during an earthquake, etc. We needed to determine which was the worst scenario and base the design of the structure on this to ensure that the building would be stable.
So in yesterday's general meeting, Dennis (an undergraduate civil engineering student who graciously volunteered to do the load calculations) brought in his analysis of the truss structure. Now we can finish calculations on this coming Friday's design meeting and hopefully have the design done by February. The meeting will be at 12:30 PM on the 8th floor of Boelter Hall in the SEL Research Commons which is right across from the Science Engineering Library.
And I forgot to mention that a recent email from Marvin, our contact in Nicaragua, informed us that there is most likely going to be plywood that we can use! Yay!

Design and Deadlines

During the design meeting, our head design leader, Eugene, basically showed us in ten minutes how to build a schoolhouse. Of course, there's definitely more calculations and work so there will be a Design Day this Friday at 12 PM. Anyone wanting to help and willing to learn can come even without a structural engineering background. They will be meeting in front of Boelter Hall in the Court of Sciences. There are two designs for the schoolhouse: one with plywood available and one without plywood available. The alternative of not having plywood would cause more difficulties in design and gathering material and would be more costly.
In our regular meeting, Oren reminded us of the deadlines approaching. There is a great need for us to raise money because without the money we cannot begin construction of the schoolhouse. Therefore, everyone is to bring the name of a foundation with a grant to next week's meeting.
Another issue raised was that the foundation would probably be exposed for a long time (possibly even a year) and because the soil is mostly clay, we need to find ways to build the foundation to last during the wait between visits. Two solutions that were discussed were to either build a bigger foundation or to transport gravel or sand from another location to place the foundation on top of (the gravel or sand will allow water to drain).

Clay Sucks

David, our geotechnical graduate student, finished running tests on the soil samples that the team brought from the assessment trip and delivered the results during the meeting. He said the soil is mostly clay and the clay is mostly plastic which leads to problems in the stability and safety of the structure. Basically, clay sucks. Luckily, our design team can hammer out a plan that overcomes the problems that clay presents. The design team is now also focusing on the water tanks for the rainwater catchment. In the design meeting, they debated whether it should be underground or above ground, made with plastic, and other aspects of the tanks. To be more effective, possibly the coming Monday, there will be a Design Day(!) filled with lots of calculations and designing. Design Day will help us get a more definite plan sooner. Anyone can come, even if you do not know how to design a structure, because there will be much needed help with calculations and cost estimates.

Welcome Back!

Today was the first meeting of our winter quarter! And we have a lot of work to do!
Oren and Henry talked with someone from the EWB headquarters who reviewed our submitted post-assessment. She brought up some important issues that we hadn't considered such as determining who owns the land that we are building the schoolhouse and finding a schoolhouse. In addition to finding solutions to the issues she called to attention we have many other forms to complete so that we can travel to Nicaragua this summer.
In addition, more pressure is on the design team to complete the design of the schoolhouse and to also create alternative designs. Starting next week, they will be meeting at 5:30 PM in the same room where we have our meeting. I'm sure that they can use any help!
Lastly, a previous EWB-UCLA project in Thailand will need some reconstruction. The No Lae schoolhouse built several years ago needs improved water tanks. Anyone interested in helping in this project or heading this project can contact Nathan, our President and he can probably lead you to the mentor/leader of the project.