A summer in San Francisco with blueEnergy

By Austen Sybert -- College students have many choices when deciding how to spend their
summers away from school. Work, more school, volunteer, intern or just lay at the
pool are all options, widely varying in their degree of academic enrichment and
rejuvenation. This summer, I interned for blueEnergy and the opportunity provided
a perfect compliment to my formal environmental engineering studies. My
entrepreneurship and management training was accelerated under the supervision
of a fellow environmental engineer, Executive Director Mathias Craig, who has
successfully used engineering in complement with entrepreneurship and passion to
achieve a more equitable and sustainable world.

I knew by committing to my internship with blueEnergy I was not embarking
on developing complex engineering models based on facts that I directly learned back at
school. This transition to a work environment removed from my
environmental engineering studies initially caused some apprehension. Then I
recognized that my internship would utilize my foundation in engineering to diversify my
skill set, ultimately providing greater enrichment than if I remained in my narrow
window of expertise. blueEnergy allowed me to apply my analytic knowledge base
to an innovative business environment.

This summer I helped run day-to-day operations in a small entrepreneurial
office - I planned and implemented the Change Today Empower Tomorrow
campaign tactics, which raised over $10,000 in 4 weeks - I coordinated
communications and developed data management solutions with the blueEnergy
global community via data collection, social media and email outreach - I problem
solved blueEnergy's organizational structure with two co-founders, Mathias and
Guillaume Craig, which was definitely the highlight of my time with blueEnergy.
My summer spent with blueEnergy was a highly valuable way to compliment
my formal engineering studies by diversifying my skillset. I am now looking forward
applying my broader range of skills to enhance my final year of studies at Johns
Hopkins University and my future career. 

Intern, Austen Sybert takes in a Giant's game on his last day interning with blueEnergy. 

Thanks blueEnergy!

blueEnergy Celebrates Its Most Successful Trivia Night to Date in San Francisco

By Emily Castello -- On Tuesday, May 10th, blueEnergy hosted its 4th Trivia Night Fundraiser at Maggie McGarry’s in San Francisco, CA. With support from Bradley & Company Private Wealth Management, Latham & Watkins LLP, Mermaid Sweets, Pacific Brewing Laboratories, Maggie McGarry’s Pub, trivia master Fritz Zimmerman, and 150 blueEnergy Bay Area supporters, it was our largest, most successful Trivia Night to date. We raised $3,200! All of the proceeds from the event will go directly to support blueEnergy’s continued work in Nicaragua.

Trivia wizard & MC Fritz Zimmerman explaining the rules to a packed house!

blueEnergy was thrilled to welcome former and current volunteers, long-time supporters, and new friends at the event. Within the back room of Maggy McGarry’s, new friendships were forged, long-standing competition between the Stanford and Berkeley groups ensued, and the proper term for the groove running between your nose and upper lip (the Philtrum) was introduced.

Trivia Participants discussing one of Fritz’s many challenging questions

The evening’s competition was fierce, but only one team could come out on top. Congratulations to “Catawania Trivia Association of America” for taking home the grand prize, and to "Pee on the Tree" and “Energia Elotica” for coming in a close second and third. Pictures have been posted so please visit our Facebook Fan page HERE to check them out.

Congrats to Catawania Trivia Association of America

On behalf of the entire blueEnergy team and our beneficiaries, thank you for your continued commitment to our sustainable development, renewable energy, and clean water work in Nicaragua. Stay tuned for news about next quarter’s Trivia Night!

Developing and Promoting Renewable Energy on Stanford's Campus

By Mathias Craig - On the weekend of April 23rd and 24th, blueEnergy hosted a wind turbine building workshop at Stanford University. The workshop was organized in conjunction with the Stanford Solar and Wind Energy Project (SWEP). SWEP is a student led organization with the mission of "Developing and Promoting Renewable Energy on and near Stanford's Campus" and 18 of its members participated in the workshop. Helping make the workshop a reality was Phil Homer, a blueEnergy alum who volunteered in Nicaragua for 6 months in 2010 with the wind turbine team and is now a graduate student in the Atmosphere and Energy Program at Stanford.

Mathias explains the woodworking tools

Making up the blueEnergy team were Christian Casillas, Lizzie Reisman, Julie Karel, Peter Lawrence and myself. The workshop opened with an extensive safety training by the Teaching Assistant for the Model Shop (the location of our workshop). I followed this up with by a brief presentation on the design of Piggott-class turbines, before we split up into groups and got busy with our hands.

The workshop consisted of several stations including blade carving, coil winding, stator casting, magnet placement and assembly. Students were free to chose the work that most interested them and many rotated between stations. The goal of the workshop was to learn about locally produceable small-scale wind turbines and to nearly complete a wind turbine for SWEP to have on hand for experimentation and a possible installation in the future. In order to achieve this in such a short time-frame, we had all the metal work pre-done. Unfortunately, after the close of the workshop on Saturday, there was a small fire that damaged the shop's table saw, some of blueEnergy's tools and some of the turbine's hardware (no one was hurt). This created some obvious setbacks, but we adapted on Sunday and worked out in the breezeway and got close to our initial goal. A blueEnergy team will return to the Stanford campus in May for a half-day work session to complete the planned work.

blueEnergy Board member Matt Flannery makes a guest appearance and helps carve a blade

We are grateful to Stanford and SWEP for giving us the opportunity to teach this workshop and hope to be back on campus for another one in the near future.

Workshop participants

Midland School sets the stage for renewable energy, personal growth

By Christian Casillas - A blueEnergy team consisting of Mathias Craig, Lizzie Reisman, Andreas Karelas, and Christian Casillas just got back from blueEnergy’s first wind turbine building workshop hosted on US soil. The team spent two days at Mathias’ alma mater, the Midland School (http://midland-school.org/), near Santa Barbara. It was part of a new blueEnergy strategy for raising revenue as well as enlarging blueEnergy’s impact.
Our workshop took up two days of the sophomore class’ yearly energy week, in which the students focus on hands on projects related to renewable energy. Two days is typically not enough time for the inexperienced to fully complete a wind turbine, but the students advanced much further than we expected! By the close of the second day, they had two of wooden blades almost completely carved, all the wire coils wound and soldered for the generator, had practiced magnet placement on the rotors, and built what may be one of the best looking tail vanes we’ve seen (a blue cow in a pasture of grass!). And more than that, the students and teachers continued to stay engaged with probing questions, demonstrating how quickly they were taking in all of the new information.

Placing the free-range tail vane on the new turbine

The workshop also gave us an inspiring glimpse into the life at this rustic little school, and some insight into blueEnergy co-founder Mathias’ early development. The meals in the dining hall were reminiscent of a large family, as students, teachers and visitors all rubbed elbows while enjoying the fresh food. On a nearby chalkboard was a list of the veggies from Midland’s nine acre garden, with asterisks next to those that were currently in production and finding their way into the menu. The steak we ate at an evening barbeque was one of Midland’s own grass-fed cows who wander freely on their 3,000 acre property. Every night before showering, the kids have to load up a boiler with firewood if they want hot water. There is no doubt that these kids are going to have a much deeper understanding and respect for where their energy and food comes from than most urbanites the world over. Upon our departure, the students were digging post holes for 3 kW of grid-tied solar that they would be installing over the next three days, adding to the schools existing 22 kW of installed solar.

A quarter of the staff live with their families in their own little houses on the campus. I saw herds of little ones, from who knows how many families, frolicking together on the soccer field or in the nearby woods every day. One parent, who’d been there 18 years, told me that she loved the integration with students – she never had a problem finding a babysitter, or playmates.

Herd of big ones

It seems clear that the western world could use many more Midlands. I’m skeptical about our near-term future and current adults’ willingness and ability to change. The needed transition to more sustainable means of food and energy generation in the US will most likely come from market signals (incorporating negative externalities like carbon dioxide emissions or aquifer depletion into prices), which isn’t going to happen unless law-making bodies pass regulations, which isn’t going to happen unless their constituencies demand it, which isn’t going to happen with the world view and values with which most people grow up. The truth is, we need Midlands in many more places where ‘family values’ and world views are passed on from generation to generation – kids are indoctrinated with their parents' views at an early age, when they should be out exploring their own truths.

Sophmore class with their new turbine

 Hopefully, this new endeavour of small wind turbine building workshops will allow blueEnergy to interface with other inspiring educational programs like Midland. But we also hope that we can find opportunities to hold workshops at the many underfunded and forgotten public schools, where a hand built renewable energy generator may capture the imagination of future generations, much more so than a wall socket.

Gracias!

Wind Turbine Building Workshop – Training the Trainers

By Julie Karel - I’m a 4th year PhD student in Materials Science and Engineering at University of California – Berkeley, and I have been a blueEnergy volunteer in San Francisco for almost 2 years, helping with research projects and event coordination. Recently Mathias asked me to help teach various groups in the Bay Area how to build and assemble wind turbines. I immediately said “Yes, that sounds great!” The only catch is that I’ve never built a wind turbine before. As it turns out, there aren’t many opportunities to work with wood, copper, fiberglass resin and steel when you live in an apartment in San Francisco. No problem though, there would be training sessions to get us geared up. So, we gathered at Mathias’ house in Berkeley on a Saturday afternoon in early March for some turbine building lessons. In attendance were Christian Casillas, Lizzie Reisman, Phil Homer, Andreas Karelas and myself (i.e volunteers, staff and alumni). First, Christian Casillas and Mathias reviewed the physics and mechanics of blades in horizontal axis wind turbines – arguably one of the most important parts of the system. We learned all about angle of attack, blade twist, lift, tip speed… and much more. We had the opportunity to ask a lot of questions, and Mathias and Christian had the chance to perfect their pedagogical skills.

Christian teaching blade dynamics

After a nice lunch, we got down to business - blade carving. I can’t say that I’ve ever built or carved anything – functional or otherwise – with wood, so suffice it to say I had a lot to learn. First, I had to learn the exact functionality of all the tools. Luckily, everyone was really helpful in explaining what we needed to do. We spent the next couple hours measuring, cutting (I got to use a Skilsaw!) and carving our blades. We didn’t quite finish before dark, but I got the general idea. I really loved working with my hands, learned a lot and definitely have a newfound appreciation for the craft of woodworking. 
 

Lizzie measuring

Later that week, a skeleton crew (Christian, Lizzie and I) went back to Mathias’ house to discuss coil winding and soldering. I work in a condensed matter physics lab on thin film magnetism, so this topic I know a little about. We spent a lot of time talking about permanent magnets, electromagnetism, current, voltage, AC, DC, batteries, etc. It was interesting for me because I had never really thought about how the wind turbine actually produces electricity. Again, we didn’t get as far into the coil winding and soldering as we wanted, but I learned a lot and had a lot of fun! I feel like I will be ready to teach at the workshops thanks to a lot of help and patience from Mathias and Christian!

blueEnergy wind turbine building workshops

By Mathias Craig -- blueEnergy has been building wind turbines in Nicaragua since 2004 to electrify remote villages and provide backup power for their facilities in Bluefields. In the last year, blueEnergy France introduced wind turbine building workshops in Paris both for the general public and as a corporate team-building activity. The purpose of these workshops has been to raise awareness of renewable energy and raise unrestricted funding to support blueEnergy's general operation. 

blueEnergy US is excited to announce that starting in early 2011 it will be offering wind turbine building workshops in the San Francisco Bay Area and elsewhere in California with the same goals as the French workshops. The initial workshops will be targeted at high school and college students. blueEnergy has already drafted an initial agreement for the first such workshop to take place in the Spring at Midland High School (Mathias Craig's alma mater). Additional workshops are being discussed for Santa Clara University and Stanford.