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TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) — An idea born in Terre Haute could help people in one of the world's poorest countries greatly improve their lives.
A small group of Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology students has developed a way to make sturdy "plastic lumber" using little more than the sun's rays, some wood and trash.
The product could be used to construct shelters for people in Haiti, where a 2010 earthquake left 1.5 million homeless. Many remain in substandard housing, said Ryan Tanaka, a junior civil engineering student at Rose.
The eight students showcased their invention Tuesday at Rose-Hulman. It was part of the National Academy of Engineering's Grand Challenges for Engineering program. If their project is selected, the students would go to Haiti to implement their idea, they said.
"That's the dream," Tanaka told the Tribune-Star (http://bit.ly/1oc9czr ).
Andrea Schultz, a sophomore mechanical engineering student from Brazil, Indiana, said she is very excited at the prospect of putting the idea to good use.
"It would be so great to implement this," Schultz said smiling. "Why would I not want to go to Haiti?"
The plastic lumber is a little lighter than wood but very sturdy, said Katie Piens, a sophomore mechanical engineering student from Minnesota who drove a nail into a 2x4 after whacking it on a table to show its strength.
The students were charged with finding a project that used solar power and would improve infrastructure. The result is a giant solar oven standing about 12 feet tall that uses reflective panels to funnel the sun's heat into an oven-sized black box where temperatures can reach about 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Plastic shopping bags are placed in the oven and are melted into a liquid that is then poured into a wooden mold. It takes about 300 bags to make a 2x4 that is 4 feet long, they said.
"This can meet many needs in Haiti," said Amanda Carlin, a junior chemical engineering and chemistry student from Maryland. To melt the plastic, vegetable oil is added to the mix, she said. That oil can be reused multiple times, but leaves the lumber feeling slick.
The slipperiness is one of the things the group hopes to eliminate, given a little more time to analyze the process, they said. They also believe they could make longer 2x4s if they used a larger solar oven with larger reflectors, Tanaka said.
"They have a huge trash problem in Haiti," said Caleb Miannan, a junior mechanical engineering student from Indianapolis. That's part of what makes this project so great for Haiti: It would allow all that trash to be put to good use, he said.
Other students working on the project are Joy Atzinger, a sophomore civil engineering student from Bargersville; Sidnei Gonzaga, a junior electrical engineering student; and Emmanuel Smith, a junior physics student at Rose.
Nearly 60 percent of Haitians live below the country's official poverty line, according to the World Bank. And the country had the slowest economic growth of any country on earth except Zimbabwe from 2000 to 2010, according to The Economist.
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Information from: Tribune-Star, http://www.tribstar.com
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