17 Things We Accomplished in 2017
We've had a wonderful 2017. Here are 17 of our major accomplishments as the inaugural Projects with Under-served Communities Team Mexico:
Raised $15,000 for materials and technical advisor costs for our project! Thank you to all 101 of our generous donors!
Created PUC Mexico T-shirts with our logo designed by Nathan Chen and Julia Sunderman. We’ll be selling them this spring :)
Met our NGO Partners, Richard and Sarahi, we they visited Austin.
Tasted mesquite flour! It is naturally sweet and has a vanilla or cocoa-like flavor. We even ate mesquite flour cinnamon and chocolate chip cookies baked by Sarahi!
Had a call with a local university professor, Dr. Sadoth, at the Instituto Politécnico Nacional CIIDIR Oaxaca who has completed research on the nutritional properties of mesquite pods when exposed to various temperatures and humidity levels.
Found a solar oven at a local farm and began running experiments to figure out how it worked and how to design a solar oven of our own.
Found several technical advisors who have woodshop and prototyping experience, solar oven design experience, and experience working with mesquite. Our main advisor, David, even brought mesquite pods for us to work with.
Had a video call with the members of the mesquite flour project in Suchilquitongo. They’re close to our age and we talked with them about music and their lives in Suchi.
Completed SolidWorks models for 2 different solar oven designs and presented them to UT’s Service Learning Advisory Board.
Conducted extensive research on insulation, metal properties, glazing properties, reflector design, and climate conditions in Oaxaca and presented to the Service Learning Advisory Board.
Obtained licenses to a modeling and simulation software, ANSYS, that we hope to use to model heat flow through our ovens to make the best design decision possible.
Wrote “IKEA manuals” to explain how to assemble our designs.
Began a dialogue with Richard and the mesquite flour project team through WhatsApp to locate materials we will need in local hardware stores in Suchilquitongo as well as the Home Depot in Oaxaca City.
Tabled at local farmer’s markets to spread awareness about the mesquite flour project and our Hornraiser campaign.
Developed initial budgets and schedules for our in-country work.
Had multiple team dinners and brown bag lunches to build relationships among the 11 people on our student team. This included a trip to Torchy’s to try the Taco of the Month - a Oaxacan Taco!
Secured a location in one of the engineering buildings and completed machine shop training to prepare to prototype our designs. We’ll post an update on our prototyping soon!
Can’t wait to show you what we accomplish in 2018!
