Introduction

Hello to all,

As many of you may know, I am leaving tomorrow for a 10 week immersion/service trip to Managua, Nicaragua.  I am creating this in order to avoid confusion of mass emailing and to be sure that everyone can stay up to date what we are doing.  I will update this when I can and post any interesting pictures.

The trip is through the University of Dayton ETHOS (Engineers in Technical Humanitarian Opportunities of Service) program, which sends around 30 engineers to various locations around the world each year to work on local needs-based projects.  Some of these projects include the development and testing of solar ovens and solar autoclaves, design and production of Rocket Stoves, and the design and installation of rainwater collection and irrigation systems amongst many others.

I am going with my friend Tim Raffio who is a fellow MEE.  We will be working at Suni Solar, a company that specializes in photovoltaic (PV) systems and low energy appliances that will work well with these systems.  So far we have not been specifically told what we will do, but previous students here both built and installed/implemented these systems.

I hope that all of you find this interesting and I invite you to check back often and leave your thoughts about the ETHOS experience.  Please feel free to comment with and ideas and email me any time at hoffmajy@notes.udayton.edu.

Thanks for coming and I hope you'll be back soon; I'll try to keep this up to date.