Students give back
The UIC student organization Engineers for a Sustainable World designed, built, and installed a solar refrigerator for The Love Fridge Chicago at its Chicago Patchwork Farms location.
The Love Fridge is a Chicago mutual aid group working to place and sustain community refrigerators across the city. Its goal is to care for the community while working against food waste, alongside other like-minded groups. The refrigerators provide neighbors the opportunity to donate food, as well as take what they need.
The interdisciplinary UIC team was made up of Barbara Beltran, of mechanical and industrial engineering, Shraddha Zina, of chemical engineering, Kemuel Roberts, of biomedical engineering, Jenny Iype and Raudel Rodriguez, both of electrical and computer engineering, and Sarai Marban of urban planning & public affairs.
“Our main goal was to build a solar-powered community fridge to provide reliable access to food for a food-insecure community and reduce the energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions generated by a grid-powered fridge,” Zina said. “We wanted to do something sustainable, so we were interested in applying solar panels and also helping the community.”
“It was such a wonderful project. We were able to teach one another different skills and we really got close,” added Iype.
As a student organization project, the solar refrigerator provided the students with the opportunity to develop skills in a real-world experience that is not found in the classroom.
In addition to developing their engineering skills and reducing the carbon footprint by replacing the original grid-connected refrigerator, the students enjoyed giving back to a community in need.
“I joined this organization because I always cared about the environment, and it was really exciting to work with renewable sources of energy and we’re doing these projects to reduce carbon emissions,” Roberts said.