More than three months of intense preparation paid off for four civil and environmental engineering students who took second-place honours in a province-wide design competition.

Sara Algudady, Allison Bawden, Katharina Freund, and Jingmiao Shi learned of their success on Sunday night after arriving home from the Water Environment Association of Ontario design competition in London. A team from Ryerson took first place, but the group from Windsor beat out teams from the University of Toronto, the University of Guelph and Carleton University in Ottawa.

The contest required the students to design a two-phase expansion at a wastewater treatment centre in Port Darlington near Oshawa. The plant is currently capable of processing about 13,000 cubic metres of sewage a day. The students had to come up with a plan to double that capacity by 2023 and triple it by 2036.

“It’s a very massive project,” said Shi. “There were seven processes that we had to design. We did very detailed calculations for our flow rates and tank sizes. Lots of effort went into making sure that we were in compliance with provincial environment ministry guidelines.”

The students explained their project to the contest judges during a 20-minute presentation, but also submitted a 140-page report, which will form the basis of their capstone project to be presented here in July.

“It was just so much work,” said Bawden, who added that the team laboured on the project every day after classes ended since January.

Team members, advised by Nihar Biswas and associate professor Rajeth Seth, still haven’t had a chance to properly celebrate their success. Immediately after arriving home Sunday night they had to begin preparing for this week’s exams.

Engineering students Allison Bawden, Katharina Freund, Sara Algudady and Jingmiao Shi finsihed second in a province-wide design competition.

News Story Courtesy of UWin Daily News