Environmental Engineering Commons^™

Comparing Mode Shares For Non-Residential Destinations In Urban And Suburban Environments, Tasnia Subrin

Student Research Symposium

To ensure facility for multimodal transportation is one of the most important concerns in today’s transportation sector, with initiatives being taken to make multimodal transportation popular. The built environment variables have a strong relationship with transportation mode choice, but whether that relationship holds true in urban and suburban neighborhoods in the same manner has not been considered. Using data for three non-residential land uses, this research explores whether the built environment variables in suburban areas influences mode share like it does in urban areas. We used survey data conducted at the establishments regarding respondents’ travel characteristics from a previous study, …

Larc: Local Agricultural Resource Conservation, Dash Justice, Josh Davis, Sid Crumble, Ashlie Kinney

PSU High School Innovation Challenge

In America today, over 75% of the nation’s water is used in the irrigation of agriculture. The main users -- and abusers -- of water in the United States are farmers. In addition, many areas in the U.S. are facing drought conditions, especially in western states. Also, while the drought conditions in California are receding, water shortage as an issue demands a long term solution.

De La Salle Sensor, Shayla Adams, Geraldine Hernandez, Gloria Joseph, Elias Taylor, Elli Cooney

PSU High School Innovation Challenge

There is a huge amount of water being wasted and with climate change causing widespread water shortages, it is important that the people of Portland become more water conscious. With the our product, it will help you become aware of your water bill and the amount of water you use with a built in calculator.

Puddl: Gamifying Water Conservation, Quince Assenberg, Jack Chen, Denny Glenn, Jessica Lam

PSU High School Innovation Challenge

As the global population surges, the demand for fresh water will only increase. With no technological breakthrough on the horizon, it is more important than ever to conserve water and not waste this precious resource. Water conservation is a serious issue, and will only become more severe as global warming worsens. As the global temperature increases, and rainfall becomes more sporadic, it will be important for communities to find new ways to save water. This push has already been made in certain areas in the united states, California, where they were forced to reduce their water consumption by 25%.

Through …

Small Scale Water Filtration Project, Elaine Yang, Lang Ming, Alex Tees, Lauren Galle, Tristan Coffey, Andria Tattersfield, Colin Brock

PSU High School Innovation Challenge

Access to clean drinking water is a large problem that our world is facing today. Consuming contaminated water can lead to the spread of water-borne illnesses. Populations without the security of water struggle to develop, as seen predominately in Africa. As Oregonians prepare for life after a major earthquake which could devastate the infrastructure that delivers clean water to our homes, a water filtration system should be part of a family’s emergency preparedness plan.

There are a large variety of processes for achieving fresh water. Combining all of the necessary components to lead to clean water is a complex process, …

A Genetic Approach To Designing A Novel Biological Sensor To Monitor Water Contamination, Cynthia Bui, Anissa Rosbaugh, Israel Gonzalez, Julie Lu, Colin Kuhns, Joel Crandall, Alyssa Faulk, Miriam Nguyen

PSU High School Innovation Challenge

Many cities across the country have experienced extreme water problems. The City of Portland has issued several water boiling advisories due to E. coli contamination. Additionally, there has been incidents of serious contaminants like lead leaching in water systems (Flint, Michigan). The Portland Water Bureau does not use a water treatment plant due to the quality of our water sources; a chlorination plant is used to chlorinate the water from the Bull Run Watershed (our main water source). Not having a water treatment plant makes Oregon more prone to a prolonged absence of potable water should the supply be contaminated. …

Residential Greywater Recycling System, Sophia Bui, Clare Clark, Anthony Hoang, Kim Le, Skyler Mishler, Janette Soler, Teresa Tran

PSU High School Innovation Challenge

In a typical household, a majority of the fresh water is utilized by the shower, bathroom sinks and laundry. Water exiting from these fixtures is considered greywater. This is wasteful because the greywater is being combined with blackwater making it unusable. If greywater could be separated and captured, it can be reused for other purposes. We came to the conclusion that greywater is able to be recycled and reused for flushing excreta.

Isolated Water Circulation And Filtration System, Adrik Gurganus, Mellonie Mwawai, Wysteria Cedillo-Nielsen, Morgan Rekart, Zander Hoffman

PSU High School Innovation Challenge

One big issue we are addressing is the large amount greywater produced by average households around the country. Still, the main problem is that, in areas affected by drought such as California, people have little available clean water, and this system will greatly benefit these people directly. The Isolated water system uses a filtration combined of organic materials, soaps, dirt, foods and sink to filter out the grey used water. Since the water system is not connected with the local water system if there were a natural disaster the owner would have free access to a water source while the …

Aqua Band, Jessica Peterson, Sam Behrens, Michael Desimone, Aiden Nelson, Alexandra Leamy

PSU High School Innovation Challenge

People drown all of the time. Whether it's a young child playing in the river or a college student partying on a boat, there is always the danger of drowning. It is not always easy to tell if somebody is drowning. If you are a parent, you won’t always be watching your kids. When you look away and they start drowning, there is no safe way to be alerted of your child’s situation.

Container Houses, Tran Joseph, Anissa Rosbaugh, Sydne Scott, Hanan Yassin

PSU High School Innovation Challenge

We have noticed that there is an increasing number of homeless in our community. People who are homeless have a more difficult time getting jobs, making it harder to for them to get back on their feet.

Homeless is defined as a person without a stable place to live, in risk of being homeless. Homeless under Federal status, is defined as fleeing/attempting to escape domestic violence. Examples of homelessness include couch surfing, sleeping in shelters, and living in a car.

Our proposal was to build homeless shelters out of shipping containers.

Cleaning Up The Cities Of Tomorrow, Miguel Campos, Jack Chen, Alex Gaiovych, Fernando Lauer, Kaleb Swoverland, Anna Velikoretskikh, Jason Yu

PSU High School Innovation Challenge

A huge problem with current modernized and non modernized cities is the amount of trash being thrown away. There is a tremendous amount of recyclable material that is being thrown away with non recyclable waste into massive landfills. Even though we can not physically see the trash that we throw away on the street, it must still go somewhere. Some of that waste is toxic, other waste is made of non decomposable material. These massive waste disposal sites hurt animals, damage soil, and harm the health people living nearby.

In 2007, Americans threw out about 570 billion pounds of municipal …

Vélo-Ck, Anna Blakley, Jonathan Cordisco, Jonathan Huang, Justin Huang, Emma Perlman, Ruhika Prasad, Siddarth Suri, Will Swindell

PSU High School Innovation Challenge

Portland is known as Bike City U.S.A for its promotion of a eco friendly method of transportation and support of biking infrastructure. Although our city has this progressive reputation, there is a negative aspect of a bike-loving city that has not received attention. The Oregon Household Activity survey in 2011 states that “about 29 percent of adults in Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington counties own a bike”. As more people has decided to commute with bikes, theft has increased dramatically. According to the Portland Police Bureau, “Portland thieves last year took more than 2,100 bikes worth well over $1 million combined”. …

Optimizing Efficiency Of Street Lights, Elias Taylor, Graciela Quinto, Peter Ataras, Shareace Miller, Jesus Montes, Dylan Penston, Olivia Carter

PSU High School Innovation Challenge

A significant amount of energy is lost in the transportation and transformation of electricity from its source location to the street lights due to the imperfect systems. Whole constellations have disappeared because of light pollution.

Osmosis Alive – Algae Water Filtration System, Adrik Gurganus, Htet Htet Soe, Jonathan Baird, Liam Beckett, Nick Vautravers, Parker Swensen, Tucker Johnson

PSU High School Innovation Challenge

Goals: Our goals of this project was to:

• Obtain an energy efficient, self-sufficient system to help reduce waste and money, and reuse and recycle water. To have a successful, natural, and more self-sufficient filtration system, using algae.
• To use algae and other plants as an efficient way to filter water.
• To create a water filtration system that is organic and would have 0 waste.
• To use the water in the best and most efficient way possible, and to reduce energy and coal/oil consumption (water turbine)
• To make our community cleaner and greener, and reduce carbon footprint, pollution, and environmental impact. …

Smarter Cycling, Cory Koehler, Richard Smith, Sarah St. Clair, Alex Taylor, Aubrey Masten, Konon Phillips

PSU High School Innovation Challenge

With the current trend of urbanization, the populations of major cities such as Portland are steadily increasing. This is causing a variety of problems, both within the city and in rural areas. In regards to the city, the major challenges facing city planners are the need for the expansion of residential neighborhoods and a rise in traffic throughout the city. One way to tackle the issue of an abundance of traffic, is to make alternate means of transportation more appealing to residents. We chose to focus on bicycling because of the bike‐friendly culture already in place in Portland. An increase …

Cleaner Drain, Jonah Paivarinta, Daniel Ortiz‐Rojo, Masson Klepp, Rebekah Likestoskat, Macy Chadney, Jeremy Ferrando

PSU High School Innovation Challenge

Water in streets causes several issues, both to our infrastructure and our emotions. The water can harm property by rotting wooden structures. If the water is high enough, it can even stall cars and flood into buildings.

Being forced to walk through or around a puddle can hurt someone's emotional state, which reduces productivity and this affect people around them.

It costs about 30 dollars to clean a drain, and there are about 15 thousand drains, which totals to to around$450,000 and if you add in other costs such as employees and street sweeping for a cleaning company it costs …