For a group of students at Red Deer College, the rumbling noise of a lawn mower was the sound of sweet potential.
Since September Gregory Sawisky, Ashley Stoltz, Kirstyn Holmes and William James Clark worked on creating the prototype of a device that would turn grass clippings into ethanol.
“The idea came to me when I was cutting my grandparents’ lawn last summer,” said Sawisky. “Every five days or so, you’d end up with bags of grass that would just overwhelm the composter.”
The team’s goal to unleash the biofuel potential of grass was part of a larger challenge called the RDC Student Science Competition, organized by the RDC Student Science and Engineering Society.
The contest took place last Thursday in a style similar to the popular CBC show Dragons’ Den where hopeful entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to a panel of celebrity investors.
Three teams presented their designs to a panel of five judges.
The grass-to-gas design operates much like the process of beer making, said Sawisky. Grass goes into a hydrolysis vat where it is broken down, filtered into a solar distillation unit and then fermented with the addition of yeast. The result is ethanol.
The grass-to-gas idea was awarded the $1,000 first prize.
The vertical wind turbine design by Corey Conner and Matthew Davis tied for second place with an R3 imaging device designed by Jacob Sanders MacFadyen, Aaron Brice and Julie Saby. Each second place design, both of which featured physically working prototypes, took home $500.
Contestants were judged on the feasibility, market-friendliness and applicability of their designs as well as on the degree of science and engineering behind them.
The competition, in its second year at RDC, is a valuable experience to students, said Bryan Rowsell, a chemistry instructor in the science department and the faculty advisor for the Student Science and Engineering Society.
“They not only gain experience from working in a team environment for a number of months, but they also develop their public speaking and presentation skills when they have to present to the judges,” said Rowsell. “Not to mention they’re interacting with multiple departments in the school to get these prototypes built.”
Students who took part in last year’s competition, including Conor MacLeod who returned to judge the event this year, said it also helped them find summer jobs and co-op placements relating to their interests.
“Any opportunity to introduce students to all the resources that are right here at the college in terms of the Centre for Innovation in Manufacturing — where there are things like rapid prototyping systems — is an investment in Central Alberta’s future,” said Sawisky.
rfrancoeur@www.reddeeradvocate.com