Special design is a design alternative offered by the chemical engineering department. Instead of taking the second quarter of traditional process design, we can elect to spend the year on an independent project of our choice! Professors at the chemical engineering department work closely with students to support them. I was in the Automation Group/GreenMatter; we got to work with Lilo Pozzo, who is one of my favorite professors at UW!
The class was structured as follows:
Explore various ideas to decide on a topic!
At the end of the first quarter, we decided our project would be creating a Spirulina bioreactor that worked in space.
The environmental innovation challenge (and the complications of working in zero gravity) led us to expand our idea to simply creating a process intensifying photobioreactor.
Do preliminary background research on Spirulina, bioreactors, etc, reporting discoveries in weekly memos.
Model and design our bioreactor
Build
COVID-19 put a bit of a damper on the last part, but we were still able to learn a ton! The google drive with our work is linked here. Below, I've included our final report! Browse through for an overview of GreenMatter's work!
Since it's such a unique course, I decided to use this as an experiential learning activity:
Green Matters Experiential Learning Category: Research Associated UW Course (if applicable): CHEME 497
Summarize your proposed experiential learning activity, including the primary focus of your activity, your intended actions, and the expectations of your supervisor and/or organization/partners.My proposed experiential learning activity is the creation of a bioreactor that will grow edible microorganisms with minimal resources (energy, space, water, salts). Together with a group of students and under the guidance of Dr. Pozzo, we will design and produce a bioreactor that intensifies microorganism production. Our research indicates that the cyanobacteria Spirulina is a viable alternative to resource expensive protein sources like meat, so this iteration of our bioreactor will focus on optimizing Spirulina production. This quarter we will 1) Design and create a physical prototype, 2) design and implement control strategies, 3) improve flavor, and 4) prepare to compete in business competitions.
Explain how your activity demonstrates the values of the Honors Program Experiential Learning area you selected. Rather than reiterating our definition, outline how your activity embodies this definition.The honors program encourages using interdisciplinary skills to tackle real world problems. This project is an ideal way to relate my studies in chemical engineering, computer science, and design to a very real problem. The prototype creation is an excellent learning opportunity; this will be one of the first times I've contributed to designs that become a physical reality. I am eager to explore the challenges that come with designing our project and brining it to life, and I know these challenges will be best met with the interdisciplinary approach encouraged in the honors program.
How and why did you select this engagement? What skills or experiences do you hope to gain from it?I selected this engagement because it is some of the most independent work I've done, and I really enjoyed the work I did on it last quarter. I want this experience to act as my experiential learning activity because I'm proud of the work we've done thus far, and very excited to see the final product. Through the course of this activity, I hope to gain more design experience, and learn more about the issues that come with making designs a reality. I'm very excited by the idea of a design-oriented job, so and I hope this will give me a more concrete idea of what it's like. I'm also eager to advance my coding and optimization skills as we work toward creating an automated process.
How does this activity connect to your concurrent or past coursework? How does it speak to your broader education goals and experiences?This opportunity directly relates to much of my past and current coursework. As we did our preliminary research, I was surprised by how applicable my reactor deign and separations courses were. My current coursework in process dynamics, control, and design is also especially applicable. I've been pleased with the context they offered the project, and am glad to note this project has made me more able to recognize the applications of my classes. I am also fortunate that the work I did in the Lidstrom Lab connects well to the project--both deal in using microorganisms to solve sustainability issues. I hope working on this project will strengthen my coding and design skills, which I hope to improve.
How will your activity contribute to the larger goals of the organization/your partners?The organization (UW Chemical Engineering) is focused primarily on student learning. Since the whole project is a learning opportunity, it directly furthers those goals. The Green Matters organization, on the other hand, focuses on sustainably creating food and oxygen with limited resources. If our project is successful, we will have created a carbon negative protein source. This directly ties to the company and my group's mission, (largely because the group was created specifically to meet it).
Reflection Honestly, this was my favorite class at UW. I really appreciated its focus on design, its integration of skills from previous courses, and the independent work we were able to do.
Prior to the reality of COVID-19/learning from home, we planned to 1) Design and create a physical prototype, 2) design and implement control strategies, 3) improve flavor, and 4) prepare to compete in business competitions. Since our group was scattered and couldn't meet due to social distancing, we weren't able to make a physical prototype, and time constraints (and lack of ideas/deliveries) kept us from doing anything to improve the flavor. I was especially excited to actually build something, since it would awesome to see a design I helped create come to life, so it was disappointing not to be doing that.
Instead, we focused a lot on creating a good design, and having tangible reasons for our design choices. Initially, I was excited to use data analysis tools (like machine learning models) to make these design choices. Unfortunately, I wasn't actually able to find the raw data to implement these. Fortunately, Dr. Pozzo, out faculty mentor, proposed modeling using COMSOL (a simulation software) to model the process instead. This allowed us to get artificial data based on an assumed growth equation and the heat and fluid mechanics of the model, and make design choices from that information.
A lot of engineering coursework focuses on teaching us the basics we'll need to solve problems. This activity was unique because it involves applying these concepts to a real problem. I found that the application helped develop my understanding of my previous coursework, and was, actually, really fun. I got the opportunity do do much more creative worked than I have previously, which was great because thats why I'm studying engineering. My team and I have spent this year troubleshooting the issues that we predict will come up with our Spirulina bioreactor, and got to develop and model several different designs.
I also learned the value of having an ongoing "living document." We had a quarterly assignment that involved synthesizing weekly memos into a complete document. This was really useful tp look back on; the information is organized roughly by topic rather than chronologically, so when I had questions about some question we'd answered during a previous quarter I was able to find the information easily. The ease of it inspired me to organize my notes for my machine learning class in the same way (and therefore made answering conceptual questions much easier).
I am very grateful for the opportunities this course gave me to synthesize the things I'd learned In my courses, practice design thinking, and model and design a new system. It was daunting, at the start of the year, to take on an unstructured project, but doing design work was very rewarding, and I think this way of learning prepared me more for my future in industry and it definitely deepened my understanding of my past coursework.
Also! comments that I will treasure forever from my hero Lili Pozzo: Your supervisor had the following additional comments: It was great to see Emily and the team defining and tackling this capstone design project. Emily had great plans involving hands-on experiments that were ready to be executed but that were completely unravelled by the pandemic and the need to work from home. I was impressed with how Emily and the team was able to pivot and focus on tasks that could still be accomplished remotely. It was certainly a different experience than was planned but I am glad that Emily still found it to be rewarding. I have enjoyed having her in my courses and I think she will be a great professional. I am happy to accept this reflection.