After Hurricanes Irma and Maria hit Puerto Rico in the fall of last year, many towns throughout the island have had little access to clean or cold water, electricity, wifi, or public transportation. In addition to the issues caused by the hurricanes, 11 years of economic recession have made things even worse for the Puerto Ricans. Two of these towns, Mariana and Comerio, would like us to help them improve their living scenario so that it’s closer to something you’d find in the United States, where our basic needs can be taken for granted.

A proposed solution of getting Puerto Rico back on their feet is to develop a means of transportation, water purifier, and a solar-powered washing machine all at a cheap and affordable price for the Puerto Ricans to use. One approach to this would be researching the necessary parts needed to make our projects at an appropriate price range. In order for us to do this, we first need to come up with an acceptable design that can be light and portable for Puerto Ricans to carry and move without sacrificing a lot of unnecessary things. Although the people of Puerto Rico needs immediate help, we cannot simply rush our project and ship it out as soon as possible. Rather, we will spending adequate time in each stage of our project to ensure the highest chances of success. Through this, it is estimated that our project may be completed at the end of the first half of 2019.

 

Team Members:

Ryan Kane, Freshman, Biomedical Engineering

Sahil Patel, Freshman, Computer Systems Engineering

Adin Dorf, Freshman, Computer Science

Cameron Brand, Freshman, Electrical Engineering

Abbas Shami, Freshman, Biomedical Engineering