Beginning of Spring Quarter, Sprint Season, RIT Solar

Last week was spring break for RIT and I went to Cocoa Beach, FL with RIT Crew to train. It was amazing! I had never been more south than Pennsylvania, making the trip that much better! We did a lot of rowing and land practice. I never knew that I could get up at 6am and be tired enough to practically fall unconscious at 9pm.

I was rowing in a "four" which was a nice change from the eight. We rowed in the ocean and had many new experiences from that. On the first day of practice, the novice eight I was rowing in (didn't practice in the four until Tuesday or Wednesday) was going down a channel we used because it was nice and straight for about 3 Km. During this morning practice, we got to row alongside a dolphin! Some people might not find that cool but it was only 15 or so feet away and was really cool to me.

I got to try surfing, go to a Ron Jon's surf shop, see palm tree's (only saw them in movies before that!), and other fun activities. We were not the only crew down their either, alongside us was WPI, Fairfield University, Holy Cross, and Northeastern University. We left Cocoa beach Friday morning to head to Aiken South Carolina for SERCS (South East Rowing Collegiats) which took 10 hours! We got lost in the middle of Georgia for about four hours.

We didn't get to row in Aiken, SC because we got their too late on Friday and the race was canceled due to high winds on Saturday March 8, 2008. I did get to see family that lives in Georgia that I have not seen in a few years so it was very worthwhile and fun even though I was really bummed that we didn't get to race.

Spring Quarter

Spring quarter is definitely going to be tough, I am already very busy and it's only week one. We are having more demanding practices due to Spring season being the sprint racing season for RIT Crew. With the demanding EE curriculum, RIT Crew, clubs like K2GXT, and Imagine RIT, this quarter is going to fly by and I'm holding on so far. I managed to do pretty well Winter quarter and really surprised myself with my grades on final! Those were some well earned grades, no matter what they were!

RIT Solar

We are working on our Imagine RIT project now. I found out that even though I will be helping with designing, finding funds, and building the project, I will most likely not be able to go present at Imagine RIT. This is due to the NYS Championships in Whitney Point, NY on the same day of May 3, 2008. As enthusiastic and devoted to the project as I am, I will NOT let RIT Crew and myself down by skipping the race for the show. The team and I have trained hard enough, gone through our share of pain with winter training on the ergs, and will be going through much more in the coming months to back down.

We are currently designing a prototype "proof-of-concept" open loop solar hot water system. We will build it and display it with other materials. We are almost done determining our costs and will be actively searching for some sort of funding. This project is not just a science fair exhibit, we want to raise awareness of this technology and influence the institute to implement solar hot water on campus. Keep watching this blog for the link to our website that will document the progress and updates to the solar hot water project!

That is about as much time as I want to devote to the blog, unfortunately I would love to add more but must get more work done. Thanks for reading my blog, I hope it is interesting and informative about what is happening at RIT!

RIT: Orange, Brown, and Green?

With President Destler running campus this year, he is apparently pushing to make RIT a "greener" campus. From the President's website, he is trying to initiate a movement to produce "...the nation's first "Innovation University"..." by hosting the "Imagine RIT" creativity festival that aims to attract about 30,000 people from the Rochester area.

RIT recently launched the Golisano Institute for Sustainability which from what I can reason would be a stepping stone to "greening" RIT. So with the buzz on campus for a more sustainable outlook to life and industry practices, what better time than now to help out?

I am part of a First Year Enrichment group that is designing a renewable energy alternative for RIT. Our project simply started with an idea for the class project and has grown into an interest to see if our idea is feasible to be implemented on campus.

Our group is researching the idea of providing some of the hot water used in a couple dorms with solar hot water. Hot water is one of the most energy demanding commodities used during the day. According to Solar Roofs, the average electric home water heater can use more energy than the average car per year; only by a little bit, but never-the-less a surprising reality.

Solar hot water is used to pre-heat the water before it enters the water boilers. This reduces the temperature difference that the water heater needs to use energy to heat the water. Groundwater is typically 45 F and the average hot water temperature is roughly 110 F, a difference of 65 F. Even with a solar hot water system that brings the temperature of the water to 50 F during the winter on a cold day, is still saving the energy used to heat the water by 5 F. During the summer, a system could bring the water up to 110 F and provide a relatively large percentage of the hot water during peak usage.

We are working on our final presentation for class and will then, time permitting, push this further and try to gain some support from campus. As I said before, this is a personal interest among the group members. We are only required to provide an outline for class, and we are already computing statistics and other data such as cost. Being Electrical Engineering majors, we are running off of our enthusiasm and hope to learn more from this project while being able to at least stir some interest among the community here on campus.

If there are any comments on this, please feel free to share them!