DHE is a student-run group at Dartmouth College. Although the majority of students are engineers, the group is college-wide.
In collaboration with our partners e.Quinox, from Imperial College London, our team of 7 DHE members and engineers implemented a hydropower site with a 1 kW stream engine turbine. Our goal was to demonstrate the sustainability and profitability of the battery-box business model and bring electricity to a rural population. The previous year, DHE members had met with the village leader in Rugaragara to discuss the hydropower site my team built. Based in Kibeho at the Regina Pacis Catholic mission, we implemented the site at Rugaragara, a rural village- some 40 minutes away by car over dirt roads- where no one owned a light bulb and our cameras were foreign devices.
An experience in international collaboration, cultural sensitivity, civil engineering, construction with limited technology, project leadership, and teamwork, this summer was incredibly valuable to me. I learned some Kinyarwanda and had the chance to practice my French. I can now cut rebar, pour concrete, build a gabion wall, use a hammer drill, and explain the purpose of a settling tank. I keep in touch with our Rwandan contractor, Pierre, who was invaluable to us and to our project's success.
Completion of the gabion wall. This retaining wall protects the turbine house we built later that summer on the ground we leveled above the wall. I'm in the yellow vest at right.
Here we have a mix of Imperial College and Dartmouth College teammates - Adam, Finley, Pierre (our contractor), me, Asher, Matt, and Kevin. We're celebrating finishing the gabion wall!
Kevin and me cutting and tying rebar for the settling tank.
Cement pour days are the most fun and exciting! It always feels like more progress is made than on other days. Here, Finley and I are helping the Rwandan villagers pour and jam the cement for the settling tank. I'm using a rebar piece to push the concrete deep into the plywood supports.
Weir strategy discussion - me, Adam, Asher, and Merritt. We had diverted the stream several days ago and had noticed an alternate weir location a bit further upstream than initially planned and were debating the merits of each (difficulty of concrete pour, distance to settling tank, etc.).
The river was diverted to dry the riverbed. Adam and I are grouting rebar into holes we drilled into the bedrock with hammer drills. After setting the rebar, we use plywood walls to hold in the concrete we pour for the weir.
Pierre, Finley, Kevin, Asher, me, and Kurt. Halfway done with pouring the turbine house back wall and floor! That house is very solid now. My time in Rwanda ended before the team got to lay bricks.
Asher, me, Finley, and Kevin. Another concrete pour day. We had to pour this wall in several stages because we needed to make sure it was well-jammed into the lower half or our wall would collapse.