EPICS Engineering Course Overview
Introduction:
Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) is a program developed by
Purdue University that tasks students and teachers with using engineering to
help others. In short, an EPICS project is any that applies science to help make
the world a better place, and most EPICS projects target a specific stakeholder
(e.g. a community member or group). Our course at OLP will seek to make our
community a little better by spreading awareness about renewable engineering
and developing projects and curricula that will stimulate younger students’
interest in applied science.
Projects: The
course will consist of daily participation as well as several major efforts.
Each large project is described in brief below.
Renewable Energy: In the face of mounting environmental pressure to curb carbon emissions,
governments are implementing regulations that discourage fossil fuel
consumption and incentivize renewable energy usage. Renewable energy can take
many forms, but perhaps the cleanest and most attractive form is solar energy
harvesting. To promote awareness of renewable energy, our class will partner
with the Wild Willow Farm and Education Center in Southwest San Diego. There, the students will exhibit renewable energy through solar ovens, an increasingly important
technology for the developing world. Throughout this project, the students will study the
chemical, physical, mathematical, and materials science concepts central to
solar oven production and function. Further, the students will implement EPICS design
principles to ensure that they are accurately assessing and improving their approach as they prepare for their exhibition.
Repurposing Project: In keeping with their efforts to promote environmental sustainability, the students will re-engineer an unused item and put it to new, permanent use.
Repurposing Project: In keeping with their efforts to promote environmental sustainability, the students will re-engineer an unused item and put it to new, permanent use.
Independent Project: Each pair of
engineering students will be appointed as the principal investigators
responsible for completing a project of timely importance to the local and/or
global community. The projects will encompass a diverse array of disciplines in
applied science.
STEAM Day Project:
Students will use their engineering and fabrication skills to design a toy or
other physical device that allows younger students to learn about concepts in
STEAM.
Personal Project: This is
each student’s chance to show what she can do with the skills she has acquired
over the course of the semester. Perhaps the biggest thrill of engineering is
tackling a project of personal interest. This project need not satisfy any
interests other than those of the principal investigator, but it should
absolutely be an applied science project.
