Internship Fun Times

Wow! It’s been a super busy two weeks full of work and fun times. The time here is flying by. This past two weeks we have been working on our internships every morning from 8-1ish and then having classes at 2. Last Monday we all went off to meet with our internship supervisors for the first time to begin our work. Libba and I had our first meeting with Ayal, our internship supervisor, during which we made a schedule outline for what we wanted to accomplish during the month-long internship.

solar heater (work in progress!)

We decided we wanted to create solar-powered systems that could be used to teach young children in the Monteverde area about the power of the sun. Last week we contacted schools in Monteverde to try to set up a day to come and teach our materials. We also created and sent out a survey for families in Monteverde to assess the needs of the Monteverde community. Results from the survey indicated that drying clothes is one of the greatest challenges in Monteverde due to high humidity and rainy weather conditions, so I decided to make a solar space heater, which could heat an enclosing in which clothes could be hung to dry. Another common issue is a lack of natural light, so Libba is making a solar light using plastic bottles. We have been working on building our products this past week, and next week we plan to finish building and start working on the educational materials for the products.

 

painting the cans

Jennie working on some seed paper

dominating the power tools! 

The solar heater that I am creating is made of aluminum cans for the piping. I drilled holes in the cans, attached them in a snake-like configuration, and painted them black so that as air flows through the piping it will heat up. I made a wooden box and placed for a frame for the contraption and put the piping inside it with cardboard insulation and a zync absorber plate, which I painted black and put inside the box behind the piping. In the end, I will have two layers of black piping that are connected together at both ends of the system, with a fan at the beginning to force air up and through the piping. I plan on creating attaching the system to an enclosed space in which someone could hang clothes to dry.

Libba's sweet light tube

Other people in my program are also working away at some interesting projects. Similar to my project, Carly and John are working on making a solar dryer to dehydrate coffee beans. Corrie is making a mobile bike-powered blender and Carrie is creating art out of recycled “trash”, called trash art, or Trart! In addition, Jennie is making seed paper products, which she is marketing to hotels and businesses, Julia is working on a cost-benefit analysis for a hydroponic farm, and Lyndsay is working on a project to make one of the conservation institutions in Monteverde more attractive, safe, and kid-friendly. 

In other news, the weekends here have been pretty fun! Last Saturday we went to the Fería, which is the local farmer’s market in Monteverde, for a project on food security. We went to both the Fería and the Supercompro to gather information about the prices, quality, and sources of different foods that are common in the Tican diet.

essentially what it will look like

We’re also in the middle of midterms, which means lots of exams and papers as well! Last Monday we had Spanish class, and my class had two papers on the field trip as well as a reading quiz.  We also spent the majority of our free time last week writing a paper comparing common-pool resource management of two different organizations that we visited at Isla de Chira during our field trip. We also had our first midterm from Karen’s SEES class, which everyone seemed to agree was QUITE difficult. However, the teachers bought us pizza and beer for after the exam to unwind and celebrate the end of the first exam. After a little celebrating we went to dance class to learn to salsa!

On Monday my Spanish class has two quizzes, and then we have our second midterm on Tuesday and then our last one on Thursday. Next week is going to be somewhat stressful, but we’ll get through it. I look forward to completing my solar space heater next week during my internship, and although we have a lot to do next week, it will be nice once it’s all done.

Tonight we are all going to meet at the bar to watch the Costa Rica versus Brazil soccer game. Should be a good match! Tomorrow we are going to visit another waterfall to relax and unwind after this week. It should be a good weekend.