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In a village where only one house has a bathroom and cooking is done in a dark kitchen with a smoky ceramic stove, BYU engineering students are trying to make a difference.
"Most of the houses had a pipe going to a tub that was sort of like a kitchen sink," said Randy Lewis, a chemical engineering professor who accompanied the students.
The BYU chapter of Engineers Without Borders recently returned from Peru where they implemented projects to improve cooking stoves, water heating processes, and water quality and distribution in a small village near Cuzco. Students designed a stove that won't smoke -- instead it heats water and sends the smoke outside. They also created processes to get water to homes from natural springs in a cleaner and more efficient way than the system of pipes the villagers had been using.
Students built an enclosed structure like a greenhouse to convert llama dung (the main source of fuel there) to methane gas that can be used to cook. The students had to build an adobe wall to enclose the device.
"That was a great experience for the students," Lewis said. "It's actually a cultural experience because everything they do there is out of adobe."
Chemical engineering professor Vincent Wilding, who also accompanied the students, said the experience helped students learn to work with other types of engineers and learn cross disciplines. It also gave the students a chance to use their education to serve others.
Students spent 16 days building and installing their devices and returned May 14. Lewis and Wilding took the group of 18 students to Peru on their second project as a chapter.
Wilding said the idea is to make the village where the students worked a model village where people go and copy the ideas and implement them on their own.
"People can see those and say, 'Hey, that's a good thing,' " Wilding said.
Students used materials that could be found in Peru and simple processes that could be duplicated. Benjamin Richards, a junior mechanical engineering student, helped design the new cooking stove using the stoves the villagers had. He added a flue and insulation and made them more efficient. By using materials the villagers could afford, the stove can be duplicated.
"The best part was seeing them use it," Richards said. "We tried to keep them from using it so we could finish and make sure everything was working properly, but they couldn't wait. We would come in in the morning and they would already be using it."
Several of the students' spouses also got involved. They gathered hygiene supplies, maternity kits, clothes and books for the village and distributed them on Mother's Day, which the village was celebrating for the first time.
"It was just a fantastic thing to see the looks on the mothers' faces," Richards said.
Last spring students in the chapter went to Tonga to create a process to make biodiesel fuel. Future projects could take place in Ghana or Honduras.
• Brittani Lusk can be reached at 344-2549 or at
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