Our Projects

EWB-NU is currently working on different projects abroad and locally:

Technical Team

We are currently working on a water distribution project for the Paja Colorada community in Manabí, Ecuador. This project began in December 2019, and though progress was delayed due to pandemic restrictions, the team was able to meet remotely over the last 2 years, secure funding, and complete a data-collection assessment trip remotely over summer 2021. Throughout this process we have worked closely with our NGO partner ‘Engineers in Action’ (FIEA Ecuador), who have been our direct contact in Ecuador and our liaison with the community and with local contractors and assessment groups. The project is now proceeding into the design and implementation phase, with the proposed solution to build a water pipeline system connecting the community to a nearby water treatment plant. We aim to be able to begin work on the system with a student trip to Ecuador late summer this year.

Past Completed Projects:

Local Team

  • Evanston Animal Shelter, IL – Whelping Box
    • We are currently working on a project with the Evanston Animal Shelter. We are constructing a whelping box for them to use with their new litters of puppies. It needs to be easy to deconstruct and store, light weight, and sturdy enough to protect the puppies.
  • Evanston, IL – Power Generating Bike
    • The goal of this project is to create an educational and interactive model for a power generating bike to teach about power consumption.

Past Completed Projects:

  • Love Fridge Chicago – Structures for Community Pantries (2021 – 2022)
    • We partnered with Love Fridge Chicago, a mutual aid group grounded in food, working to place community refrigerators across the city. We worked on designing structures for their community pantries. The goal of this project was to design a structure with easy to follow instructions so people of all skill levels could put them together and they could put up fridges more quickly.

Outreach Team

Our outreach efforts include bringing speakers to campus, doing local philanthropy, and holding on-campus fundraising events. We also have partnerships with many local schools to help expose their students to STEM. Through the mentorship program with Chicago public middle schools, Outreach is focused on ensuring that the middle school students have fun and are also able to learn soft skills from our activities (i.e. listening, how to work in groups, etc.). Furthermore, Outreach hopes to present STEM as a fun field that any student can pursue further.