ENGR 131- Fall 2020

Community-led Design Project

Our research group works closely with schools in western Kenya (Tumaini Innovation
Center in Eldoret) and Zimbabwe (Plan Intl’s girls schools in Masvingo Province). These
schools engage local community students in primary and vocational learning. We
collaborate to design curricula including engineering skills course in which the students
design and construct responses to local needs, like a solar powered system for their
dorm, improvements to a low-cost farm vehicle, and other improvements to the
school’s infrastructure. To create their engineering solutions, students must learn about
the materials, resources, processes, and systems involved in solar PV for power and for
water supply, including their structure, electricity generation, modeling and
implementation, and regulation and monitoring systems. Alternative learning models like
these schools are concerned with connecting students’ skills to immediate community needs and
simultaneously teaching them transferable concepts.

Need Statement
We need to create tool(s) and clear educational guidance for the
schools’ current power and water access equipment and its
applications to be more usable, more teachable, and more accessible.
This dual use and teaching purpose is crucial for the schools’
mission, as it allows for the tools to be sustainable and build skills
for students to apply in other context, too. We have some
documentation on the power needs and the available equipment. You will be able to
use the TI kits and can assume that this equipment is also available.

The need, optimizing solar PV and water access, use, and application and making it
more teachable, can be approached from multiple angles. An understanding of how
various systems influence the decisions made by the teachers, learners, and community
users of the products over the course of the school day and overnight is key to
exploring a solution to this opportunity. The most effective approach to optimizing use
and teachability focuses on minimizing the behavior change of the users throughout the
school ecosystem and aligning with current needs, norms, and practices. For example,
saying that the solar power will be optimized by buying a complex, expensive,
industrial monitoring system that requires one of the students to consistently maintain
will NOT be successful. Some ideas for the specific areas of need application are (1)
Solar Optimization via Load and/or Source Data Logging, (2) Solar power Monitoring
and Automated switching, (3) Water access monitoring, and (4) Water quality
monitoring.

More information and FAQ

More criteria and constraints may emerge as you ask questions and gather information
on the context, so be sure to document as these arise. For cost, this is presented as a
criterion – there is not a specific budget number that limits you, but you need to gather
evidence and optimize as need be alongside other criteria for this. If you have need of

Tumaini Innovation Center: https://www.facebook.com/TumainiInnovationCenter/

Plan International: https://www.planusa.org/girlengage-program-design
Purdue University Contact: Jennifer DeBoer, email: deboerj@purdue.edu
ENGR 131- Fall 2020

additional equipment (e.g., a motor, other sensors), you will need to justify this and
present the case for including it in your work. To succeed at this project, you must
engage in informed design. The Engineering Design folder in Brightspace has a table of
informed designing for your reference.

The stakeholder ecosystem is complex and different across the two sites. At Tumaini
Innovation Center, we partner directly with the school and the director, and they have
been engaged in the construction of the curriculum. They are a CBO (community-based
organization). The students have identified solar PV energy applications as a core
interest and future career opportunity. In Zimbabwe, we work both with Plan USA and
Plan International-Zimbabwe as an NGO that has co-created the curriculum with us,
and liaises with the two high schools located in the Masvingo Province. You will find
more information on the province (Masvingo) than the specific locations of the schools
(besides any documentation we will receive from our partners). The girls who are
leaders of the programs have identified water access as the core issue that would meet
their schools’ needs and foster greater access to school for more girls as well. Your
prototype must use a microcontroller (e.g., TI boards), recycled materials, and modeling
software (e.g., TinkerCAD) to demonstrate part of your design. Kits have been provided
to your team.

Your Final Solution

Your final solution will be judged on the following criteria and must meet the constraints:

Desirable  Solution aesthetics are appealing

Effective
Economically viable
Technically feasible
Use microcontroller
technology and
modeling software
 Solution fills a need, has a good value proposition
 Solution is educational for the relevant community(ies)
 Student understanding of the topic is demonstrably enhanced by the
solution
 Solution is relevant to the diverse users and context of Tumaini
Innovation Center in Eldoret, Kenya or Plan’s schools in Masvingo,
Zimbabwe
 Solution itself is safe and reliable
 Solution is manufacturable on site
 Production cost meets user affordability
 Use recycled materials
 Solution can be implemented with existing technology, materials and
infrastructure
 Solution functions as intended, in the local setting
 Solution is maintainable
 Your prototype must use the Texas Instruments MSP432 P401R or
other microcontroller* and TinkerCAD or other modeling software to
demonstrate part of your design. Kits will be provided to your team.

Tumaini Innovation Center: https://www.facebook.com/TumainiInnovationCenter/

Plan International: https://www.planusa.org/girlengage-program-design
Purdue University Contact: Jennifer DeBoer, email: deboerj@purdue.edu
ENGR 131- Fall 2020

 Solution must include at least one input and one output.

* What is a microcontroller? Video 1, Video 2

You will work through this project in multiple steps (each as an assignment number) as outlined in the
assignment document. This will mean that you turn in the same document multiple times, but you fill
out more with each submission. Make sure to follow all instructions.

Tip: For each task and activity that you work on it is a good practice to take pictures and video that can be
incorporated into your final project deliverables. Pictures and video can make a strong contribution to data
collection. Document when and where all photos and video are captured. In addition, you should document any
testing, all prototypes, and every design idea.

Tumaini Innovation Center: https://www.facebook.com/TumainiInnovationCenter/

Plan International: https://www.planusa.org/girlengage-program-design
Purdue University Contact: Jennifer DeBoer, email: deboerj@purdue.edu