We’re currently hosting a great variety of projects. There’s something for everyone to get involved in – whether you study mechanical, electrical engineering or even a humanity!
Precious Plastics
The main goal of the precious plastic project is to make a series of machines which recycle and repurpose plastics into useful and creative objects.
Once the project is complete, 4 machines will have been built including a shredder, an extrusion machine, an injection moulder, and a compression moulder. To build the machines, plans from the Precious Plastic organisation will be used. Recycled plastic will then be collected from the university buildings, shredded, and formed into objects which can be donated to charitable causes.
This year we plan to finish manufacture of the plastic shredder, extruder and compressor, in addition to beginning the exciting community aspect of the project.
This is a brilliant opportunity for students of all disciplines and expertise (including non-engineers) as there are a range of tasks which will need doing. Early stages will especially include a lot of manufacture and assembly within the workshop/iForge in addition to design and logistics planning.
This exciting project is led by Holly Spence, a third-year studying mechanical engineering. Contact at hrdspence1@sheffield.ac.uk if you’re interested in joining the project or go to https://preciousplastic.com for info on the Precious Plastics initiative.
Rainwater Harvesting Structure
The Rainwater Harvesting Structure project is all about sustainable construction!
Construction contributes around 10% of all carbon emissions UK and total building
construction, operation and maintenance to around 45% of all UK carbon emissions.
This is mostly because of unsustainable material choices and low efficiency lighting
and excessive water usage. Certain materials create significant carbon emissions in
their production, for example concrete. At Crewe Flats in Endcliffe, we are designing
a sustainable timber framed structure with a rainwater harvesting system on the roof.
This project will promote green urban building and sustainable living, as well as
supporting the Sheffield horticultural society that use the local allotments.
This year the Rainwater Harvesting Structure project has its eyes set on building!
Materials have been delivered, so the team (which you can join!) will be on-site
having fun building the structure and then designing the rainwater harvesting system!
If you would like to learn more about sustainable engineering or want to create a
fantastic space for the local people of Sheffield, then come down!
This project is led by Harry Spears, you can contact him at hspears@sheffield.ac.uk.
Project Kestrel
Project Kestrel is a collaboration between EWB Sheffield and Project Blueprint, a company founded by Sheffield graduates to use their engineering knowledge to create sustainable solutions to human problems.
We’re building a prototype three metre wingspan VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) drone that will be used for last mile transportation of vital medical supplies in rural Africa, incorporating a modular design, virtually unlimited control range, and on-board image recognition.
The project is split into the avionics team and the aero-structures team, each working on separate parts of the project, and coming together to assemble and test the vehicle.
In the long term, we aim to teach locals how to operate the system and repair the drones themselves, both making the project sustainable and providing jobs.
This project is led by Will Brookes, you can contact him at wbrookes1@sheffield.ac.uk
Whirlow Wind Turbine
For this project, we will be following a detailed material selection, design and assembly design book by Hugh Piggott which focuses on creating small, cheap and student-led wind turbines. Our wind turbine is expected to be built by 2020 and will be installed at Whirlow farm where it will be used in one of their low power requirements building sites such as “animal units” or small teaching classrooms. This project will compromise approximately 20 students across many different engineering disciplines such as Mechanical/Aerospace, Electrical, ACSE and Chemical engineering, meaning that students will be able to improve their interdisciplinary engineering skills by working with engineers across different sectors. The project also compliments the theoretical side to engineering that is taught at university, as this project is very technical and involves the use of many mechanical and electrical processes such as CNC machining, laser cutting, soldering, welding, wood-working and drilling. We hope this will mean the engineers on this project will become more confident and experienced at an early stage before moving into industry.”
This project is led by Isaac Rudden, you can contact him at iarudden1@sheffield.ac.uk.
Vaccine Storage
The Vaccine Storage Project is a relatively new project for EWB Sheffield, started in 2021. Our ultimate goal is to design and build a vaccine storage container that meets the standards set out by WHO which will allow vaccines to be transported through the supply chain.
In the previous academic year, we went through the WHO criteria and developed understanding of the current vaccine transportation issues. In this academic year, we will be setting the scope for our project and start designing and modelling the vaccine storage. Our end of year goal is to finalise a design in preparation for building it in the following academic year.
The Vaccine Storage Project will require a wide range of skill sets, including but not limited to: engineering design, modelling and marketing. We welcome members from every department and faculty. As this project is in its early stages, we are open to new ideas on the direction we, as a team, would like to head towards.
If you are interested in joining our team or would like to know more about the project, please email the project leader Chalisa Pusitdhikul at cpusitdhikul1@sheffield.ac.uk
Let’s build something together.
If you want to get involved with any of the awesome projects listed here, please email us using the form on our homepage!
Engineers Without Borders Sheffield 