Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Friday, October 26, 2012
FW: Sustainable Living Fair SATURDAY! Want a ride?
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Kris Schachel <sustainablesalukis@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Oct 25, 2012 at 3:15 PM
Subject: Sustainable Living Fair SATURDAY! Want a ride?
To: sustainability@siu.edu
From: Kris Schachel <sustainablesalukis@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Oct 25, 2012 at 3:15 PM
Subject: Sustainable Living Fair SATURDAY! Want a ride?
To: sustainability@siu.edu
Hello, Friends in Sustainability! =)
This Saturday is the 3rd Sustainable Living Expo at Dixon Springs Ag Center.
Billed as "A Country Boy Can Survive" meets "The Victory Garden" and everything in between, this remarkable event features workshop tracks highlighting
- Locally-Grown Foods - Basic gardening, best practices, organics, beekeeping, cooking demos, food preservation, mushroom cultivation, small-scale livestock, raising chickens, vermicomposting, and building a local food system to feed our region
- Energy - Home energy efficiency, conservation and renewable alternatives, solar ovens, geothermal, and weatherization; from cost-saving light bulbs to zero net energy homes.
- Conservation - Backyard landscaping, mushroom hunting, managing woodlands for wildlife, prescribed burning, water quality, invasive weeds, pond management, and incentives and more. Leaving the land better than you found it.
You can see their Schedule At A Glance here, or check the Detailed Program and Maps here.
To help those who want to attend this but don't have transportation (it's about an hour's drive southeast), I've arranged for a campus van. IT WILL LEAVE FROM THE MAIN DOOR OF THE STUDENT CENTER AT 8 A.M. SATURDAY, AND RETURN APPROXIMATELY 5:00 P.M.
Please email sustainability@siu.edu if you would like a ride.
There is opportunity to earn volunteer credit as well. An electronics recycling collection is part of the Expo for the first time this year, and the organizers need help with this and other tasks. Hopefully you're all aware you can earn the Environmental Ambassador Award by completing 30 hours of qualifying service!
One last note: ADMISSION IS FREE - but bring along spending money if you've got any because they'll have some yummy food vendors and also a really super fantastic Artisan Tent, with the artists all actively working on their respective creations!
* * * * * * *
In other happenings...
Green Walls and Living Architecture of Vertical Gardens Technology LLC - Laurent Corradi
Students will be installing a green wall with the assistance of physical plant services and two professionals from New York starting Thursday Oct 26, working until Monday Oct 29 (not over the weekend) in the College of Agriculture Building in the south wing (by the Plant and Soil Science office). Please feel free to stop by to view this exciting project. If you don't know what a green wall is.. check out http://www.plantwalldesign.com/eng/home.html This is Laurent Corradi's website of his business.
Mon, Oct 29, 6-8 pm lecture in the Morris Library Guyon Auditorium. Reception will follow.
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Sustainable Saluki Pledge
I pledge to join SIU Carbondale's sustainability efforts by developing personal habits that foster social, economic, and environmental health. I choose to use the knowledge and experience I gain at SIU to improve sustainability in the communities where I live, learn, and work.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Thank you!
We want to thank the sponsors, presenters, panelists, vendors, competitors and attendees for making this the best SIU Tech Expo ever! We will soon have links to videos and more from the event. For now, you can view technology presentation summaries and slides.
Congratulations to our award winners:
Inventor of the Year: Kathleen C.M. Campbell
Innovator of the Year: Lichang Wang
University Star-Up of the Year: Thermaquatica, Inc.
Student Start-Up of the Year: Rovertown.com
And congratulations to the Saluki Idea Competition award winners!
Student ideas rewarded at expo
The Daily Egyptian
Elizabeth Zinchuk
October 21, 2012
Elizabeth Zinchuk
October 21, 2012
Three SIU students came out of this weekend a little bit richer.
The fourth annual Technology and Innovation Expo was held at the Dunn-Richmond Economic Center in Carbondale Friday, where the Saluki Idea Competition concluded. The top five teams or individuals with the best ideas were announced and awarded cash prizes at the expo.
This year’s expo theme was “Sustaining our Community” and was put on by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research. The competition opened for entries at the start of the semester, when students submitted invention ideas that dealt with improving community sustainability.
It was intended to encourage an entrepreneurial spirit in students as well as lead to environmentally friendly inventions, said Amy McMorrow Hunter, a technology transfer specialist who helped organize the competition.
“It was so great to see the teams present and see all of their hard work come together,” she said.source | siu.launcht.com; Nicholas Burke-Daily Egyptian
Hunter said all of the teams fared well in the competition.
“Both the teams and the organizers for this expo have been so busy, and it is relief to see the product of our efforts,” Hunter said.
The five finalists were required to recite a three-minute pitch to judges, who then added the individuals’ points and picked the winners.
“Ecolight” won first place and received a $500 cash prize as well as a $600 grant from the Sustainability Council. “Saluki Sustainable Store” won second place with a $200 cash prize and $400 grant from the Sustainability Council. The other three ideas were each rewarded $50.
The team for “Ecolight” consisted of Eric Sia from Danville, John Leco from Anna and Gene Park from Glenview, who are all seniors studying industrial design.
According to information from the competition, “Ecolight”’s objective is to provide an environmentally friendly option to replace high traffic street lamps by harnessing power through a kinetic and solar energy combination. The idea proposes to put rumble strips near each lamp, which would collect energy when vehicles drive over them. The streetlamps draw energy from a battery and can be installed onto lampposts’ bases. The “Ecolight” team proposed the idea could create extra energy and save cities’ electricity money.
Sia said this is one of three competitions the team has won. He said he came up with the idea for “Ecolight” when he attended the Fusion competition in St. Louis.
“It was funny because I came up with the idea while driving past the Arch in St. Louis, and started thinking about using solar energy to power streetlight,” Sia said.
He said although he came up with the idea, his teammates helped him develop it.Claude Leco, right, of Anna, Gene Park, center, of Glenview, and Eric Sia, left of center, of Danville, all seniors studying industrial design, pose Friday after winning the Saluki Idea Competition at the Dunn-Richmond Economic Development Center as Joy Christensen, left, a senior from St. Louis studying industrial design, takes their photo. The group won $1,100 to further its project and plan to use half the funds to pay for memberships in the Industrial Designers Society of America for themselves as well as fellow students. “Since we only had about three days to prepare for the competition, it’s surreal to have won,” Sia said. Tiffany Blanchette-Daily Egyptian
“I could not have executed the idea without the help of my teammates who helped me research materials to use in the the idea as well as how the technology would come into play,” Sia said.
The $500 award will be split three ways between the members, he said.
Leco said the $600 award from the Sustainability Council will go toward a membership for all SIU industrial design students to The Industrial Designers Society of America. Park said the IDSA is a big group that helps industrial design students network and improve in their field.
“It is great practice for our major to go to these competitions and show off what we can do,” Park said.
Leco said the industrial design field is very competitive, and competitions give students an advantage in the workforce.
“These competitions get our names out,” Park said.
Sia said coming up with and presenting the group’s ideas helps his peers and him get exposed to the process of meeting people in his industry.
“We really worked hard to complete our project, and we would be up until dawn making sure everything was perfect,” Leco said.
The “Ecolight” team has plans for the future as well. Sia said they want to find a way to backup stoplights for when blackouts occur.
As for “Ecolight,” Park said the team hopes to advance its idea to make it possible.
“We would like to implement our idea in a practical way by eventually investing in more research for our idea,” Park said.
Jeff Myers, senior technology transfer specialist in the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, said he is excited about the competition’s outcome, and he looks forward to future competitions. He said the office has plans to put on a similar competition in the spring.
Friday, October 19, 2012
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