A campaign to clean the city’s canals was recently organized in U.S. Students from Francis College of Engineering participated in it. They designed and built a floating trash collector to clean the city’s canals. This effort helped them in receiving a Green Design award from the Lowell Sustainability Council. Not only this, they also got a certificate of Special Congressional Recognition from U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan in addition to the award.
Three teams were formed where students from electrical, computer and mechanical engineering departments were hand picked to work on the project. The students took turns working on the Roomba-like machine which seems to be an ongoing Industrial Capstone Senior Design project sponsored by Enel Green Power. It is the same company that manages the city’s canals.
The project is called – “Rover the River Hawk”. It is roughly the size of a billiards table. It is designed to collect canals’ floating trash in two steel mesh cages. One of the groups attached the trolling motors that could be controlled using WiFi. Here is everything you want to know about trolling motors that helped build an amazing prototype.
Several organizations came together and combined their energies into making a successful machine for cleaning the canals. This project appears to be a collaboration with ‘Enel’, ‘the National Park Service’, ‘the Coalition for a Better Acre’, ‘Lowell Canalwaters Cleaners’ and ‘DIY Lowell’. According to Jay Mason, chair of the Lowell Sustainability Council – “This project showcases that different forces can be joined as a community that will help in making progress on an important issue.”
Brennden Winton ’18, Vikram Laisetti ’19 and Andrew Garber ’19 are the three bright students from Francis College who were honored at the annual Sustainable Lowell Awards at City Hall. The award function was also attended by Capstone Coordinator John Palma, an assistant teaching professor of electrical and computer engineering at Francis College.
