See you soon, Symbiosis

The day has been both physically and emotionally overwhelming for our team. Today was the last day we would be visiting Symbiosis Public during our Spring Break. After a week's worth of working with the school faculty and interacting with the school children, we realized how very attached our team has become to Symbiosis Public. To send us off with well wishes, the children and teachers prepared a small recital just for us Engineers without Borders. These adorable kids read poems (both in Hindi and in English), sang prayers (also both in Hindi and in English), and even danced to Indian music for us. (Photos will be uploaded once we get back to the US):

(Picture caption) Danced to a nursery song basically about a horse running faster and faster (which the children imitated).

After the various performances were completed, Eva and I gave a short speech about EWB-CMU's mission and what we have been doing at the school this week:

(Picture)

Next, Principal Ahmad gave a progressive speech about his passion for greener living and sustainability. He talked of how saving the environment today for generations tomorrow was crucially important. Principal Ahmad also spoke of how thankful he and his school was to our team. It was inspiring to see how strongly the principal felt and just how right he was. His words were also clearly evidenced in the school's initiative for greener living.

On top of giving us a small assembly, the school also prepared small trophies to give to our team, as mementos for us to remember them by. At this point, the whole idea that this would be our last visit during Spring Break sunk in. Before this trip, I had no idea how amazing this school and its students were. From day one, we received cute hand-made cards with attached flowers from children of all grades and autograph requests from both teachers and students. Even after the assembly, both the children and teachers asked for our autographs. We felt a bit like movie stars, even though we've only started on this five year-long project. After our amazing experience during such a short period of time, our team has gained even more renewed dedication to the project.

After all the autographs were signed and the pictures were taken, I realized that it would only be a short period of time before we come back to Symbiosis Public. I hate to end on cheesy lines, but I suppose I'm now a firm believer in the phrase: "It's not goodbye. It's see you later." Well, Symbiosis Public, you can count on us seeing you again real soon.

Day Three at Symbiosis: How Bazaar

Today we headed back to the school for an assembly put on by the students and their teachers. But first we met with Farrukh Parvez, the brother of Mrs. Ahmad, who owns his own solar product company, Global Eco Power. He mainly sells smaller solar items, but he wanted to meet with us because he was interested in our project and wanted to hear what we were planning. Apparently he was involved with EWB in Africa and has a passion for green energy. He definitely sounds like a good person for us to keep in touch with. He raised a lot of good points about starting first with the needs of the school, and as a result it is his opinion that a battery system would be an unnecessary cost.

After the meeting, we gathered in their assembly room with the students and teachers for their performance. We filmed the whole thing, so rather than go through the details, I’ll just say that it was fantastic and the school is so appreciative of what we’re doing for them. Hopefully we’ll be able to post that video of the blog shortly. Also, Avesh has been filming clips the entire trip and he and Eva interviewed some of the teachers and students and the principal, which means we have enough material to make a kick-ass informational and fundraising video.

At the end of the assembly, they presented us with trophies and certificates from their school, indicated that we’d worked on a project to promote environmental sustainability and make the work a better place. In case we haven’t mentioned it before, that’s really big at Symbiosis. They’re all about sustainability and conservation, and they have signs and plaques all over the school to remind the students of this.

After the assembly, we spent what had to be at least an hour taking photos and signing autographs. That’s right, autographs. So note to the next travel team: work on your signature.

We tied up all the loose ends at the school and said our goodbyes by five and headed off to the Rampur Bazaar, mainly to pick up some items to sell at grilled cheese and auction at winter gala. The Bazaar was crazy, but the prices were even craaaazzzierrrrrr. We bought about 200 bangles for like $12, which we can probably resell for at least 50 cents a piece. We (ok, Eva and Sabrina) also bought scarves, jewelry, and a sari for fundraising.

We left the Bazaar, some of us by rickshaw, and proceeded to Sam’s sister’s house where Eva and Sabrina got henna tattoos on their hands while Ken, Tejank, Avesh and I did important manly work-related stuff, like drinking tea and napping. Also blogging. At around 8, we left for the hotel and grabbed a quick meal. Mr. and Mrs. Ahmad met us their to say goodbye and help us settle the bill (working around the language barrier was a lot of fun on this trip. I’m serious). They were, again, extremely grateful for our project and everything we’ve already done. It was tough saying goodbye, especially knowing that most if not all of us won’t be returning on the next trip, but after this trip I certainly plan on going back to India, and when I do I won’t feel satisfied unless I check back in at Symbiosis Public School.

Blog Note

Hey Everyone!

Thanks for following our blog. Because we have sporatic internet access, we're going to be backdating some of our posts. Be sure to check through the blog to make sure you didn't miss any!

Thanks,
The India Travel Team

The kids

The kids at the Symbiosis Public School unilaterally agree that Eva is their favorite Carnegie Mellon Student. She receives the most flowers, the most cards, and even the most smiles. Not going to lie, I’m jealous. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like the rest of us are being shunned. We have all been given flowers picked from the school’s garden and origami cards. We all feel very loved.
When Eva and I entered a classroom to do some filming, all of the students stood up at once. They said in unison, “Good morning sir, good morning ma’am.” We have been receiving greetings like this since we arrived at the school two days ago. In fact, we suspect that the students were instructed to be very formal and polite with us. The kids follow the rules explicitly –they are very disciplined. Hopefully we will see the real personalities of some of the kids tomorrow, when we will have time to play some games.
Tomorrow’s going to be a busy day for both us and the students. The students have been planning an assembly for the past couple of days. We have heard them rehearsing it many times over, and will see the real thing tomorrow. Meanwhile, we will be putting together all of our data today, as it is our last day in the school. Eva and I will be interviewing a couple more students –hopefully they won’t be too quiet. We’ll update you on tomorrow’s events as soon as we can!

Day Two at Symbiosis

After a delicious breakfast at Sam’s sister house, we drove to the school for our second day of assessment, where we primarily collected technical data and tested our equipment.
Our solar pathfinder was the champion of the tested equipment, as it successfully proved that no shadows would interrupt our solar panels in our chosen location. For those who don’t know, the solar pathfinder is a half-spherical device that is designed to reveal the presence of shadows for the entire year (shadows that would affect our solar panels’ ability to provide energy, and hence, its use). We placed it in a number of areas for the sake of comparison, organized numerous angles, and got conclusive evidence regarding the movement of the sun at Symbiosis. It proved to be a worthwhile investment; however, if we had to pay the $300 price to use it, I’d argue otherwise.
In addition to the solar pathfinder, we also put our 100ft measuring tape to good use by determining the dimensions of the roof. The blueprint originally given to us turned out to be an older one, and thus, our drawings became more important. This brings me to one of the highlights of my day: watching Ken throw the measuring tape off the two story roof in insistence that the throw would aid us in finding a more accurate measurement of the height of the roof (in the end it did not, which is why I found it so amusing).
Otherwise, the day was spent counting the light bulbs and fans in each classroom, photographing every inch of the building, and interviewing students, teachers, and the principal. By the end of the day, thanks to the hard work put in by all the team members, most of the data that was supposed to be collected tomorrow was collected today, which will hopefully allow us ample time to visit the bazaar tomorrow.

Here’s what we learned (technically) at the school today!

This is a mostly technical post (fair warning).

Electricity: The grid runs off of hydroelectric (green energy), which is scarce in the summer. As a result, the electricity is rationed and powers industry during the day. At night, it powers homes and schools. This means that Symbiosis does not have grid power at all during the school day (8 am to 2 pm) in the summer, only at night for 4-5 hours when school is no longer in session (*need to confirm when power usually goes out, and when it comes back on). When the grid is out, the school runs off a 5 kW diesel generator, which they usually run for 4 hours per day (*confirm). The grid power is usually out from 6 to 11 every day.

Water: The school uses water from the grid, which is pumped to four 500 L holding tanks on the second floor of the school. They are used when the power goes out, because when the power goes out the city pumps shut off and there is no water (*confirm). Drinking water is filtered from ground water (*confirm) using clay and parchment filters.

Generator: The 5 kW generator uses approximate 2 liters of diesel per hour. It is on for around 3-4 hours per day in the summer. Diesel costs 40 rs ($0.90) per liter, which means the school spends around $7 per day on diesel energy. The nearest diesel station is 4 km away, and the school sometimes needs to pay drivers to pick up diesel for them. Assuming that the summer is 3 months long (60 days), and that the generator is not used at all the rest of year, the school pays around $400 on diesel fuel alone. The generator is offline for around 4 days every year for scheduled maintenance. This costs around $50 per year (*confirm).

Loads: The greatest load on the system is during the summer, when several fans run in each room. At this time, the school uses around 4 kW, pulling off of the generator. No lights run during the day, but the school uses four computers, with plans to put in a computer lab with 15 computers. The primary loads are the fans, which each use 80-100 watts (48 to 56 inches; 75 watts for exhaust fans). When running on the generator, the school turns off approximately half of their fans (each room has between two and four fans). The school also has one television set. A 500 watt inverter is used to charge 400 Wh (12V 180 mps) batteries for the computers.

Peak Load: In summer, the peak load for the system is around 5kW (in winter the fans are not used, but the lights are, and the loads are only around 2-3 kW). However, this is only using around half of the fans in the school. According to the electrician, the school, if it had reliable electricity, would use around 7.5 kW to power all of its fans. This, in addition to the computers that the school plans to put in, could bump the potential peak load to closer to 10 kW in summer.

Conditions: At the school, especially during the summer, the conditions are hot and dusty. This must be taken into consideration for the solar panels. We may want to look into cooling systems and automated cleaning systems.

Hardware: The breaker box is located on the first floor below the stairwell. I think the main switch is rated at 32 Amps, but I’m not sure what the BUS rating is.

How 'Bout That Ride In? I Guess That's Why They Call It Rampur City

First, we’re posting these now because out hotel does not have wifi, so we were unable to post until we hunted down an internet café. Second, we apologize for missing whoever’s parents called six times last night. Once again, that was Avesh’s fault.*

After our meetings and a quick lunch (and ice cream), we headed off to Rampur. We took two cars, with Sam, Avesh, Tejank, and Sabrina riding with the driver we rented for the week. Ken, Eva and I rode with one of the technical mentors, Suresh Soman. Suresh has been very helpful since we arrived in India. The drive started off well enough. Drivers in India are crazy and don’t seem to follow any sort of known traffic code. And cows are everywhere and get to do anywhere they want. Also, monkeys:

Like I said the drive started off well enough. We all stopped for a bit of Chai tea, got back in the car, and I briefly nodded off to sleep. When I awoke, it was night, and we were in the movie The Road Warrior. The road was filled with towering sugar cane trucks, and to go more than 20 mph, you had to leap frog them by passing in the oncoming traffic. I’ve never thought I was going to die so many times in such a brief time span.

Really, it wasn’t that bad (our mentors all insisted it was just because we’d never experienced anything like that before, but that Indian drivers are used to it). They were at least right about the fact that I’ve never experienced anything like that before. Oh, and our driver had a neat little trick where he turned on a siren and flashed his “Electronic Press” bumper sticker and got to blow tolls and pass people. Apparently the press are more important than police here.

We arrived in Rampur around 7:30 and met Mr. and Mrs. Azrar, the principal of the Symbiosis School, and his wife, a biology teacher. They kind of reminded me of my grandparents, who worked in education for many years. We had dinner with them in the dining room of the hotel and they seemed very exited to have us. Apparently their daughter, also a schoolteacher, came into Rampur from Delhi because she is so excited to meet us.

Halfway through dinner, Eva realizes she left her suitcase back in the hotel in Delhi. Luckily, we called Sam’s friend/brother-in-law Rishi** in Delhi, and he went back to he hotel and found it for her. We should get it in Rampur by tomorrow afternoon.

Crisis averted, we all finished dinner and said goodbye to Mr. and Mrs. Asrar. Still in great spirits, we’re excited to check out the school tomorrow and see a bit of Rampur.a

Let the assessment begin!

*Avesh rebuttal: “I turned it on vibrate because we were having dinner with the principal of the school!”

**Rishi has been invaluable and helped us since we got off the plane in Delhi. He picked us up, showed us around, got us checked in at the hotel, and generally made sure we all stayed in one piece.

A Long, Rambling Post

Today we were scheduled to meet with a solar vendor and then to do a little site-seeing. Due to lack of cell phone and communication we had no idea what time we were suppose to go out. We finally got in contact with Rishi, Sam's brother-in-law later that morning and he took us out to yet another breakfast. Driving is an interesting experiance in India, and by interesting I mean terrifying. Basically anything with wheels share the road. The streets are clogged with bikes, Ricksaws, auto-ricksaws, people and cars and lanes don't seem to matter. Driving essentially comes down to flooring the car to make it through a gap, while narrowly missing cars, and mopeds, and then slamming on the breaks so you don't hit the ricksaw or random person making its way down the middle of the 'road'. We eventually made it a mini-mall kind of place and went to McDonalds(where else would we go to eat in India). The McDonalds here don't serve beef or pork. After Tejanks finished his delicious looking veg McMuffin we headed back to the hotel and meet one of our professional mentors Suresh Soman. We then headed to Gorguen(or however you spell it) to visit the first solar vendor. On the way there we stopped at a road side vendor, who cut open some coconuts for us to drink the water from. We waited there for around twenty minutes until our second professional mentor, Nitin Goel, arrived. We then continued on to met at the RGREP which was a park run completely on solar energy. The solar vendor we met with was Ankur Agarwal and he was the Founer and CEO of a small company call Advaitenergy. He was very knowledgable and gave us a lot of general information about PV's, as well as several rules of thumb that will help to determine the feasability of the project. The technical details and notes I took are the end of this entry. He confirmed that the data we planned to collect was more than adequate for the initial assessment which was great considering that a second assessment trip would be less than ideal. From the meeting it was evident that both our professional menotrs were very knowledgable in the field even though both claimed not to be experts. After the meeting we headed back to the hotel and Nitin and Suresh went home (both live in Delhi). Rishi arranged it that we could order pizza when we got back to the hotel(why eat Indian food when in India). We ordered some kind of pizza and it was...different. One of the guys that works in the hotel doesn't know english but every time we pass him he says "lookin fresh". Tejank and I then took a nap and Rishi woke us up to go site-seeing. We drove out to India Gate to see the memorial and it was pretty cool. For some reason the memorial was like a festival and reminded me of the Fourth of July at fire-work shows. There were a lot of people there and a lot of vendors seeing ice cream and different light-up toys and such. After the Gate we went back to the mall we had gone to that morning and finally got some Indian food. Rishi helped choose the food and it was great. The restaurant was South Indian was it wasn't too spicy and it had a lot of good desserts. The best part was that for three meal and two desserts, it only cost a little bit over 10 dollars. After dinner we looked around the shops a bit and then headed back to the hotel to sleep. Sorry for the long post, I can't tell a story in any kind of concise manner and tend to ramble.

Meeting With MoserBaer

Tuesday morning we all ate breakfast at the hotel and met with Nithan to go over the project, his work and some basics of solar power in India, then we loaded the rented car and traveled to the Delhi office of Mosar Baer (which sounds like “Mother Bear” with an Indian accent) and met Suresh, our other local professional mentor. We toured their rooftop solar installation, consisting of a Three Kilowatt Monocrystaline and a Five Killowat Multicrystaline system. We examined and photographed the mechanics of the installation, including mounting and wiring and discussed the benefits of monocrystaline vs multicrystaline arrays and got some basic performance statistics (Multicrystaline arrays are 14-15% efficient and are less expensive than the 16% efficient Monocrystaline Arrays). Then we checked out their battery array and inverter system which consisted of 24 tubular batteries for the 3KW system and two inverters – one for batteries and one for real time conversion. We learned that inverters are not scalable so if we decide to implement the solar panels in stages we will need to buy an inverter that can handle the goal wattage upfront. We then discussed some rules of thumb for solar installation. We now know that we need about 15 square meters of shadow free area for each KW of solar panels oriented south facing at about a 30 degree angle to the horizontal. The team discussed costs and logistics of the project with Krishan Kumar Sharma, one of Musar Baer’s engineers who works in sales and marketing. We essentially have two options for how to proceed with the design work for the project: we can design in parallel with our technical team and the engineers at a local solar vendor each creating a design separately after which we will use our design as a guide when we review their design or we can design in series by getting the design specs for the equipment the local solar vendor has access to, doing the bulk of the design work in Pittsburgh and then making final tweaks in communication with the local vendor to arrive at a final workable solution. We also decided that it is more likely we will work with Advet Energy than Musar Baer since they are more likely to involve us in the design process and develop a more customized solution and since working with smaller, more community based companies is more in keeping with EWB goals. After the meeting we went next door to a local mall to get lunch and then loaded up in Suresh’s car and the rental van for the harrowing journey to Rampur.

--Eva