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Welcome to
DESIGN FOR THE ENVIRONMENT
MIE315 Course Project: Pesticide Spraying
Integration of Environmental Considerations into Every Engineering Design Project
This attribute implies the ability to work effectively as a member and leader in teams, preferably in a multi-disciplinary setting. Real life engineering project always requires the knowledge and skills from more than one discipline. This really indicating an essential skill of working both independently and as a team member. Furthermore, be able to effectively communicate and even lead a team become such a valuable asset. At the same time, effective communication between team and the clients or project managers is also critical. In my opinion, if one wants to be a professional engineer, one must meet both these two basic qualities. The first is to be able to independently and efficiently complete the assigned tasks, while being able to articulate your contributions later on. The second is to carry out active communication and communication inside and outside the team to ensure that the actions of team members are consistent with the ultimate goal. Through this course, as the leader or the contact person, I have the opportunity to experience a realistic group project process with a team of 4 and better understand how this individual and teamwork skillset should be implemented in an engineering group project. This is exactly the attribute I wish to have when I become a professional mechanical engineer.
INTRODUCTION
As a professional Mechanical Engineer, the development of 12 Graduate Attributes can not be ignored. In MIE315 Design for the Environment, I have focused on developing two of the attributes which are team work(left) and Impact of engineering on the Environment(right). In short-term of my career goals, these two attributes would allow me better fit into my summer research group as well as PEY internship company with a mindset of design for environment while working on projects. In long-term, These will set me up so that I can become a professional engineer who can successfully work with other engineers and also design great products which actually make the world more green and sustainable.
This attribute implies the ability to analyze the social and environmental aspects of engineering activities. This capability includes understanding the economic, social, health, safety, legal and cultural interactions between engineering and society, as well as the concepts of sustainable design, development and environmental management. In my opinion, engineering is not only about solving problems by just meet the specific FOC (functions, objectives, and constrains), but also about the detailed consideration of how to bring more benefits to the world in different aspects such as the society and the environment. Engineers play an important role in pushing the world forward. By doing so, every engineering project should be in a position to make the development of our society, economic, environment, etc. sustainable. New technologies do make people’s lives more convenient and efficiency. However, sometimes the negative impacts of the product on the society and environment are so high such that the benefits become meaningless. So, this environmental consideration should be one of the necessary criteria for the success of a new technological product. Through this course, I have the opportunity to experience a realistic design process and better understand how this environmental thinking should be implemented in modern engineering design.
Pesticide Spraying
Pesticide Tractor VS Agricultural Drones
The project is to choose a better design alternative between i) using pesticide tractor and ii) using agricultural spraying drones. Pesticide tractors are currently widely used in the agricultural industry. Agricultural spraying drones is a newer technology and should offer promise for reducing the negative environmental impacts over the first alternative. Our client wants to maximize the efficiency of pesticide usage while saving money and minimizing the damage to the environment. Finally, a consultant's report was provided which fully supported our alternative proposal. The analysis includes FOC analysis, steamlined life cycle assessment (SLCA), economic analysis, hybird and impact LCA, social analysis, and finally sensitivity analysis. Through the detailed scoring systems and the assumptions that were made in each analysis, agricultural drones were considered to be the better choice for maximizing spraying efficiency while minimizing environmental impact. A final poster presentation presents the key analysis results and provides reference for further decision making by the client.
Individual Work
For a group work, the first and the most important component would be individual work. Every team member should play different roles and have different responsibilities. All team members are able to contribute independently and effectively, which really means a strong sign of success and team dynamism. Through this course, I was involved in all the project elements and group activities which includes a lot of individual researching and writing. The first contribution I had for the project is through a preliminary literature review. Three valuable articles and books are researched as main sources for further use in the consultant reports. These articles were identified as high-quality sources by passing the CRAAP (currency, relevance, authority, accuracy and purpose) tests. While I was doing the tests, I have learned that sometimes even the sources are not meet one or two of the criteria, they can still be used under special conditions. In my case, information related to agriculture technology, China economy, etc. may strongly depend on their currency since they have been changing every year. After that I have played an important role in conducting both the primary and final consultant reports. My main focuses were on life cycle assessment and system boundary of agriculture drone. Based on lots of research and detailed analysis, I have contributed an essential section in the reports. While we were drawing conclusion and recommendation, I learned how important a person's individual tasks are to the development of the whole team.
Individual
Teamwork
Team Work
A team that can effectively communicate and help each other will always have a stronger team cohesion and will be able to show better coordination and achieve higher results. Aside of everyone’s individual responsibilities, one should also take the responsibilities in terms of teamwork and communications. This ensures everyone inside the team and also clients be able to keep get updated and on the same page. In addition, the leader of the team often needs to have a broader vision to lead the team in the right direction. Through this course, I became the contact person and the team leader. In our group project, I was mainly responsible for holding weekly group meetings, weekly TA meetings and all three of the client meetings. Each time we would make the meeting agenda and meeting summary, and I would send all the documentations to the client for their references. If my teammates had questions or concerns, I would write the emails to our project TA or our professor so their concerns could be addressed effectively. When there were new updates or announcements, I was always trying to let my teammates know as soon as they are been released. This ensures every team member could get the latest updates and have enough time to make further decisions. By being be roles in my team, I got a lot of positive feedback from my teammates through Team Effective Learning System (TELS). One thing to notice is sometimes during the meeting, I should promote more productive discussions so other group members could know more about my thoughts and opinions.
Environment impact
Throughout the whole semester, I have learned two main analysis about the engineering impacts on both the society and the environment, which are LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) thinking and DfE (Design for the Environment) strategy. These two analysis methods show me the potential impact that each stage of engineering design may have on the environment and our society through different ways. In terms of life cycle thinking, we had an example of. I found that when judging whether an object is environmentally friendly or not, people tend to focus only on the use stage of the product. Some items, on the other hand, have a very serious impact on the environment and society when they are produced manufactured or recycled. Only from the perspective of the whole life cycle of this product can we better and more comprehensively judge the extent of its impact on the environment and society. In one of the case study we had in lecture about the household lighting, fluorescent lights (CFLs) and incandescent light are compared. If we simply say that because CFLs emit 77 percent less carbon dioxide and use less electricity than incandescent bulbs, we will conclude that they must have a better impact on the environment. However, also the material choice and end-of-life phase also play an important role in these products.
The same question applies to our project. When comparing spray tractors and agricultural drones, it is easy to conclude from the use stage that drones operate only on electricity, whereas tractors require a lot of petrol and fuel, and drones are better. However, the manufacturing and recycling phases of drones have a much greater environmental impact than tractors. This makes a big contribution to the ultimate overall life cycle impact on the environment. Therefore, through this course, I learned that when looking at the impact of things on the environment, we must look at things in a more comprehensive way
Impact of Engineering on Society and the Environment
Society Impact
When talking about society impacts, both economic aspect and societal aspect should be considered since they are having relevance to the society and stakeholders. Engineering projects are always related to economic development. Given the time value of money, stakeholders can get the insight about which option is economically better by looking at a cash flow diagram with the same lifespan. These comparisons could be based on NPV (Net Present Value), Annual Cost etc. In our project, I have learned that same lifespan is really important when compare two alternatives. Simply compare purchase price, variable cost and fixed cost for one tractor and one drone, we could draw the conclusion that tractor is more expensive than drones. However, heavy machines like tractor usually have 10-12 years of lifespan where drone’s lifespan are about 6 years. This really indicating that with a 12-year period. One will possibly need to buy two drones in order to have the same operation time. Because of this, the advantage of drone in economic aspects become not obvious anymore.
In terms of the analysis of societal aspects, I have learned that only consider the consumers who are actually using the product is one-sided. Instead, one may think about a total of 5 categories which are local community, workers, society, members along the value chain and consumer as well. People’s health and safety may still get affected even they didn’t use the product at all. In our case, Tractor produces a great amount of carbon dioxide and lots of noises which potentially influences workers and local communities in both healthy and safety. Alternatively, drone may have impact on wildlife due to its high-speed propeller rotation and operation in relatively large space. A more comprehensive consideration of these social factors will make the analysis more objective and the conclusions more convincing.
