Philippines Team Member
The University of Delaware chapter of Engineers Without Boarders has multiple national projects as well as projects within our own community. I worked on the project in the Philippines from 2019 to 2020. The project in the Philippines was focused on developing a rainwater catchment system to provide clean water to a community of about 300 people. As a general team member, I helped in any parts of the project needed including researching different types of filter systems, finding places to order equipment from, and helping write sections of the reports. This project made me want to become more involved in UD EWB and led to my position on the Bolivia project. I was also able to create some strong new friendships through this organization and attend a variety of social events like pumpkin painting that allowed me to get to know so many more people in the club.
Bolivia Project Manager
The newest addition to UD EWBs list of projects is based in Bolivia. This project is new for the chapter in a variety of ways as it is the first time we are partnering with another organization, working with other schools, and it is the first non-water based project. The Bolivia project is focused on building a pedestrian bridge in a community in Bolivia that lacks a safe way to cross a river to get to resources on the other side such as school, farms, jobs, and so on. We are working through Engineers in Action and are paired with Georgia Tech and Eastern Mennonite University.
​As the project manager, I am responsible for keeping the team on track, selecting team member roles and travel positions, checking and finalizing documents and plans, running meetings, and staying in contact without mentors. Even though this project began in June, I have already learned so much from it. I have a lot of experience with project management, but this has expanded my abilities tenfold. I am now working with people from other universities with very different styles of doing things, other project managers, and mentors that have a lot of experience in this area. This project also has very high stakes compared to other things that I have done. The biggest thing that I have learned to be okay with is constant feedback and constructive criticism. Everything that my team and I do needs to go through many series of checks since it is a bridge that is being built that people will walk on everyday. More often than not, those checks find many errors that we need to address, but it is vital for the design and accepting that not everything I do is going to be perfect will only benefit this project.