Our team’s goal is to create a system that can be pulled on a trailer hooked to the back of the school bus that can store, transport, and purify a large amount of water quickly. This system would make it possible for a smaller number of people to travel to the lake at less frequent intervals and bring back clean water for all purposes.

As the new director of Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS), Scott Shrake says that the program offers an incredibly unique opportunity for him—and the students, faculty and staff who are involved.

“When I went through my undergraduate engineering program, the outreach and entrepreneurship component was something that I missed,” he says. “I want to see my ideas to have an impact—that is why I am an engineer.”

ASU is one of more than 20 university partners in the national EPICS program founded at Purdue in 1995. In the award-winning service-learning program, teams of undergraduate students design, build and deploy systems to solve engineering-based problems for not-for-profit organizations such as charities and schools. Teams are finding solutions for critical needs both locally and globally—from access to clean drinking water to reducing food waste and feeding those in need.  To fully implement these solutions, EPICS teams also must become entrepreneurial to obtain the necessary resources.

Shrake says that he has always felt a pull to entrepreneurship. While pursuing his doctoral degree in civil and environmental engineering at the University of Pittsburgh, Shrake tailored his research to the business aspects of engineering, developing methods for evaluating and improving the environmental performance of service industries, especially healthcare and consulting.

Prior to joining ASU, Shrake was a National Science Foundation IGERT Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh where he pursued multiple research interests including sustainable business development, improving the sustainability of healthcare, and biofuel production and use. This work allowed him to collaborate with multiple corporate, governmental and nonprofit organizations including Alcoa, Bayer, Gewalt Hamilton Associates, Inc., University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and the Kingsley Association.

He sees EPICS as the perfect opportunity to put that expertise, along with his passion for community outreach and development, to work.

“EPICS at ASU has a great foundation. I am excited to have the chance to continue to build the program. The sky is the limit,” he says.

Shrake also brings a passion for teaching. He has mentored high school and undergraduate research groups in the U.S. and in Brazil, where he spent six months as a visiting scholar at the Federal University of Espirito Santo.

“If you had asked me 10-15 years ago what I wanted to be, my secondary answer to being the president of the U.S. was becoming a teacher,” he says. “The structure of EPICS enables me to take teaching a step further and be a mentor.”

Shrake says that one of the keys to success is faculty and staff, and he hopes to increase involvement. “This is a great opportunity for young faculty to increase their outreach efforts and get involved with students who are ready and willing to tackle some of todays biggest problems.”

For students, he sees EPICS as an opportunity that shouldn’t be passed up. “Employers love when students take on opportunities like this. It allows students to demonstrate their innovation and creativity, develop a well-rounded skillset, and gain practical hands-on business experience – all while working towards solving global problems. An interdisciplinary background is essential in creating sustainable solutions in todays business environment, and EPICS students will be able to actively develop and refine this background.”

“I would like this program to be the reason that students choose ASU—the pinnacle of what ASU has to offer,” Shrake says.

The team members recently talked about their project on Channel 12’s “EVB Live” show in Phoenix.

Read more in Full Circle

Team 33 Buckets is developing a project designed to provide clean water in communities in rural Bangladesh, where contaminated water is a leading cause of disease and other health problems.

33 Buckets was one of only five teams that made it to the Dell Challenge world finals from among some 1,700 teams that initially entered the competition.

For its performance in the finals, team members will get mentoring from professions over the next year to advance their project and some Dell computer hardware.

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The team was formed through the Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) program in ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering. It was one of eight EPICS teams that were among the 200 teams chosen in the spring as Dell Challenge semifinalists.

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AlphaStripe is a global, online networking platform for military service members, military families, civilians, and humanitarian organizations to share war-time and conflict zone stories in video, photo, audio, and journal formats. AlphaStripe is led by mechanical engineering graduate student, Eli Chmouni.

FlashFood, G3Box and SafeSIPP developed their projects in the Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) program.

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Members of the 33 Buckets team are (from left to right) students Varendra Silva, Connor Weigand, Paul Strong, Mark Huerta and Pankti Shah.

Three student teams in the Engineering Projects In Community Service (EPICS) program in ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering are among leaders in the highly competitive 2012 global Dell Social Innovation Challenge.

The team 33 Buckets is one of only five teams from around the world selected to compete in the final round for the Dell Challenge’s World Student Social Innovation Awards June 12 in Austin, Texas.

The teams FlashFood and Project TOTO have been selected as People’s Choice Award winners – earning each team $1,000.

From the more than 1,700 student teams that entered the competition, eight EPICS teams were among the 200 selected for the Dell Challenge’s semifinal round, including SafeSIPP, Team Ride & Bike, Well-Water, Project Cure M^3 and Project Cure Database.

The five members of 33 Buckets have designed a filtering system to provide arsenic-free water to a girls’ school in rural Bangladesh. The project also includes plans to establish a microfinance business to provide the school with a source of income from selling surplus purified water. This team is currently in Bangladesh working on the project.

The six-member FlashFood team is working to establish a network to collect excess food from restaurants and catered events and deliver it to people in need at local community centers. The system uses social media technology for communications between the donators, collectors, distributors and recipients of the food.

Project TOTO has plans to convert large steel shipping containers into above-ground tornado shelters, making them low-cost and more easily accessible.

Read more at the Dell Social Innovation Challenge website.