Engineering solutions to sustainability problems

UCL staff and students are encouraging secondary school students to develop their understanding of sustainability issues and develop devices to solve them.

Josh Bailey, a postdoctoral research fellow in UCL Chemical Engineering, and Rebecca Shutt, a PhD student in UCL Physics & Astronomy, worked together on a series of workshops to bring engineering into disadvantaged secondary schools in East London, while raising awareness of sustainability issues and technologies.  

The workshops were part of a year-long project that was funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering and organised by PPL PWR, a voluntary organisation dedicated to growing and empowering a community that cares about sustainable futures. PPL PWR began as a student-led initiative at UCL that Josh co-founded during his PhD at UCL. 

““The students attended hands-on workshops on renewable energies and energy storage technologies,” explains Becky, who challenged them to work out the energy and power output of Mo Farah and Usain Bolt, and to make the battery with the highest voltage from common household food stuffs.  

Students were then asked to design devices to solve the sustainability issues faced by different individuals in a variety of settings, such as a commuter in an air-polluted city, or a farmer in an arid climate. “They employed junk-modelling in the design process before using various materials and components to produce a physical version of their design. During the workshops, the students designed an air-humidity condenser using solar panels and thermoelectrics, as well as an energy-harvesting lamppost, employing hydroelectric turbines and battery storage.