Media Advisory/Photo Opportunity: Csu Engineering to Display Projects at Hughes Stadium Oct. 6

WHAT:

Colorado State University mechanical engineering students will showcase clean energy and other major projects at Ram Town at Hughes Stadium in Fort Collins on Saturday, Oct. 6 as part of Homecoming events.

WHEN/WHERE:

The displays will be in Ram Town just south of the stadium starting at 12:30 p.m.

DETAILS:

Projects to be featured in the Division of Public Affairs and the College of Engineering tents:

Formula SAE car

Society of Automotive Engineers students conceive, design, fabricate, and compete with small formula-style racing cars. The restrictions on the car frame and engine are limited so that the knowledge, creativity, and imagination of the students are challenged. Cars are built with a team effort over one year and are taken to an annual competition attended by 120 other vehicles from colleges and universities throughout the world.

Cookstoves

Students are conducting research at the CSU Advanced Cookstoves Lab and testing their cookstove product, called the TEG, in Guatemala and Nicaragua to prove it could reduce fuel costs and reliably generate electricity for lighting. The stoves the students worked on recently attracted national attention in Guatemala when Guatemalan First Lady, Wendy Berger, showed them to U.S. First Lady Laura Bush. Berger’s programs have led to the installation of several thousand of the stoves in Guatemala.

Retrofitted two-stroke engines

Envirofit, a spinoff of CSU’s Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory, applies innovative technological solutions to reduce pollution and improve the health, environment and economy of people around the globe. One of the worst global sources of outdoor air pollution is dirty two-stroke engines. Envirofit is cleaning up the air by retrofitting two-stroke powered vehicles with cleaner, more energy – and cost-efficient direct injection technology. Envirofit is currently retrofitting engines in the Philippines and is looking to expand to other markets. Envirofit is also poised to become a world-leader in the area of clean cookstoves, with initial work already underway in India.

Algae-to-oil conversion process

Solix Biofuels, a startup company, is working with the CSU Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory to develop biofuels based on microalgae. Solix’s patent-pending technology is based on high-productivity, low-cost photobioreactors. The Solix effort is currently based at CSU’s engines lab and involves full-time Solix staff, CSU students (graduate and undergraduate) and faculty as well as additional collaborators from around the world.

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