Nepal 2.0 is the second Nepal project for AEGT students, and is taking place during the 2014-15 school year.  Students are applying the science, math, and English skills they are learning in their academic classes in their project-based engineering class. Working in teams, students have begun to research, design and build renewable energy systems for two remote Nepali villages high in the Himalyas. The villages of Namdo and Karang are so remote that the only way to get to them is by hiking in on a narrow dirt path through the 13,000-foot high Himalayan Mountains.* This provides an engineering challenge, because whatever systems the students design, the systems' components must be transportable on the backs of yaks. College and business mentors are working collaboratively with the students to ensure that the systems they design and build are highly reliable, easy for the villages to maintain, and will not have any negative impacts on the environment.

 

The Hartford students are learning to harness energy from the wind and sun, bringing power to the residents of these remote villages. This second group of AEGT students wants to help two communities thousands of miles away have the same opportunity to improve their way of living and learning that the first village, Saldang, now enjoys. The students, however, don’t yet realize how much this project will change them.

 

*The system will be transported from Hartford to Namdo and Karang by Himalya Currents, a Connecticut based nonprofit, and the World Wildlife Fund.