Fall Address and University Picnic 'Go Green'
Sept. 6, 2007
Don't miss the President's Fall Address and University Picnic today starting at 11:30 a.m. on the Oval. Hear President Larry Edward Penley share his vision of Colorado State for the coming year and enjoy a complimentary lunch.
Entertainment and displays focusing on some of CSU's environmental initiatives will be part of the festivities.
Model wind turbine
A model wind turbine, sponsored by the Live Green Team, will be on display and the team will share their green vision about the student green power program through the City of Fort Collins Utilities.
Chemically-powered car
Students in the Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering accepted the challenge to design and build a car that is powered by a chemical reaction and will also fit inside a shoebox when disassembled.
CSU students competed this year in the ChemE Car competition during the Regional Student AIChE Meeting in Tempe, Ariz. The main objectives are for the car to go a certain distance while carrying a certain amount of weight. This is not known until about 30 minutes prior to the competition! So, the approach the ChemE Car team from CSU used included a very light car powered by a reaction between baking soda and hydrochloric acid.
CSU's team placed 2nd overall and as a result, they will be competing at the national competition in Salt Lake City, Utah this November.
A chemically-powered car will be on display.
Firefly cook stove - Better energy solutions for families in Guatemala
In most rural areas of underdeveloped countries, people cook on open fires in the middle of the floor, resulting in severe health problems that primarily affect women and children.
Working with a Texas manufacturer who supplies cook stoves to Guatemala's poorest residents, a group of senior mechanical engineering students conducted research at Colorado State labs and tested them in Guatemala to reduce the costs and significantly increase the rate of production of these stoves. The students are working under the tutelage of Professor Bryan Willson in the College of Engineering's Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory. They're making modifications partly from their experience as engineers-in-training and partly from visiting with families in Guatemala.
The stoves recently attracted national attention in Guatemala when Guatemala's first lady, Wendy Berger, showed them to U.S. first lady Laura Bush. Wendy Berger's programs have led to the installation of several thousand of the stoves in Guatemala.
A working Firefly cook stove will be on display.
Recycling tires leads to cleaner environment and better roads
A civil engineering group is researching whether some of Colorado's 40 million stockpiled rubber tires - the largest batch in the nation - can be reused to improve residential foundation soils and road bases and mitigate the effects of expansive soils. Antonio Carraro, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, is leading a research program that will test mixtures of expansive soils and scrap tire rubber.
The research has the potential to mitigate the shrink-swell potential of roadbed and foundation soils and help clean up the environment at the same time. Carraro also recently received a $128,913 grant from the Colorado Commission on Higher Education to test his expansive soil-rubber mixtures in residential foundations.
Come see what becomes of recycled tires.
Photobioreactors - Solix/EECL Algae-to-Oil
Solix Biofuels is a CSU startup company working to develop biofuels based on microalgae. Solix's patent-pending technology is based on high-productivity, low-cost photobioreactors. The Solix effort is currently based at CSU's Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory and involves full-time Solix staff, CSU students (graduate and undergraduate), CSU faculty as well as additional collaborators from around the world.
Small photobioreactors will be on display.
Early detection of severe storms saves lives and property
A Colorado State University professor is leading a test of a sophisticated network of radars in Oklahoma's "tornado alley" to improve early warning systems for tornadoes and severe thunderstorms, possibly saving thousands of lives each year.
The radar system in the Oklahoma test bed is part of a multidisciplinary collaborative effort funded by the National Science Foundation; the Engineering Research Center for Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere, or CASA, is a partnership between Colorado State and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the University of Oklahoma and the University of Puerto Rico.
Electrical and computer engineering Professor V. Chandrasekar is the leader of the remote sensing stage of the project and also the deputy director in charge of CASA research programs.
Green student organizations
Green Student Organizations will have diplays to educate you about sustainability and the Live Green Team, student wind power program, RecycleMania and Earth Day.
Go Green with CSU Facilities Management
Learn more about CSU Facilities' efforts to make our campus Go (more) Green.
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Learn more about today's event at http://www.president.colostate.edu/index.asp?page=fall_address_07.
Contact: Auli Summerhays
Email: Auli.Summerhays@colostate.edu
Phone Number: (970) 491-4634
