Engineering students smash poverty
;)
Engineering Week ended when students were encouraged to pay for a chance to whack an old car parked in the shadow of the EV Building. Engineers Without Borders students (from left) Anis Khan, Pierre Luc Metcalfe and Sabahat Naureen demonstrated how to get the most bang for your buck.
Photo by Sabrina Ratté - IITS Creative media services
Students from Engineers With-out Borders (EWB) ensured National Engineering Week, held Feb. 25 to March 5, went out with a bang – literally.
On March 3, they invited passersby to symbolize a dent in poverty by making a real one in a white, 1988 Chevy Cavalier. Participants could pick their weapon: A sledgehammer for $2, a crowbar for a loonie, or a tire iron for 50 cents.
All proceeds went to the Make Poverty History Campaign. Smashers were given a postcard to send to their Member of Parliament requesting that Canada double foreign aid expenditures and cancel the debt of developing countries, among other things.
People crossed the snow-encrusted ‘green space’ at the corner of Guy and De Maison-neuve to get at the vehicle, which looked defeated by mid-day: Its lights knocked out, dash smashed, hood caved in and doors shredded.
Organizers spraypainted words on the car, targets for people to vent their frustrations upon. They included HIV/AIDS, Famine and “Your Ex”.
“That door had ‘Midterms’ painted on it. It was the first to go,” Diane Cousineau, EWB Concordia President, said, and pointed to the door which hung limply from its hinges.
“One guy just went crazy on it.”
The car smash was held as part of the third annual EWB day. The two other EWB Chapters in Montreal, at McGill and École Polytechnique, held their car smashes the same day as the Concordia one for maximum impact.
The event wrapped up a full week of displays, lectures and high school outreach visits. EWB had a stellar lineup of speakers, such as Philip Schubert and Daniel Henry, who have decades of experience working in underdeveloped nations with the Canadian International Development Agency.
As part of Water Day on March 2, the group held a technology exhibit on the mezzanine floor of the Hall Building. They highlighted examples of simple technologies that can help improve the quality of life in impoverished nations.
The centerpiece was a treadle pump, the operators of which use their feet and legs – not their hands – to pump water using two pedals.
“Simple, efficient technologies like these allow people to spend less time working and more on development,” said Eyal Azran, a third-year Computer Engineering student and EWB member.
He also showed off a biosand filter, a sturdy concrete column that contains a filter made with layers of sand and gravel.
These materials can strain out most matter such as sediment, worms and pathogens. One has to wait about a month to get the really small germs though, until a layer of organisms – collectively called the schmutzdecke – grows.
“It’s a culture that forms, and they start to prey upon the smaller microbes. Eventually, they get most of them,” Azran said. “For the first month you can only use the filtered water for agriculture, but after that you can use it for drinking.” For more information about EWB, visit concordia.ewb.ca