If you are interested in participating in a bit of sustainability research this quarter, here is an opportunity for you. Milad Ashtiani and Steve Muench are looking for a few undergraduate student volunteers (all years are eligible) to help Milad with some of his Greenroads research.
Please Respond by April 7th if interested.
What would you be doing?
You will be working on a collection of bid item lists and design documents from 33 Greenroads certified projects. The majority of work involves:
- Calculating the weight of materials used to build things
- Specifying the type of equipment and estimating their work hours
- Finding the right project document and collecting the right information
- Documentation of your data collection effort
Effort and Commitment required
They’ll do a 1-hour training session with you, and then you do 10 hours of work in April 2021. There is a potential for more work based on your desire and your performance. The additional work would be paid.
What is point and output of this research?
Milad’s research is assessing roadway construction projects according to their cost, energy, and emissions. The main product of this work will be a refereed journal article. If you help, you would get recognition for your contribution in addition to the experience you gain in sustainability and reading/interpreting plans, specifications and bid tabulations.
What to do if you are interested:
- Message Milad at ashtiani@uw.edu.
- Tell him you are interested in the Greenroads research opportunity.
- Attach your resume to the message.
- Answer these questions in your message (if you have no experience, that’s okay, we just want to know):
- What experience do you have reading and interpreting construction documents (plans, specifications, bid tabulations). Taking CEE 307, 337, and any other course where that is done counts!
- What is your level of familiarity with Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)? If you took CEE 408, you have some good experience. Perhaps you have heard about it elsewhere?
- Are you comfortable using MS Excel and entering formulas in spreadsheets?
Learn more about the opportunity by continuing to read.
Why Bother?
Are you interested in sustainability? Are you curious about how you as civil engineers can contribute to a more sustainable built environment? Do you want to gain some hands-on research experience before graduation? If yes, this is a great opportunity to get exposed to a large dataset of construction project information and exploit the knowledge you learned during your four-year stay at UW!
Who is Qualified?
You only need three basic skills to be considered eligible:
- Ability to read design documents, drawings, and bid tabs
- Familiarity with Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) fundamentals
- Basic MS Excel experience (entering numbers, simple arithmetic)
Scope of Work
You will be working on a collection of bid item lists and design documents from 33 Greenroads certified projects. The majority of work involves:
- Calculating the weight of materials used to build things
- Specifying the type of equipment and estimating their working hours
- Finding the right project document and collecting the right information
- Documentation of your data collection effort according to instructions
Effort and Timeframe
A one-hour training session will take place the first week of April via Zoom. It will cover the basic tasks required to get the job done. You are expected to work for 10 hours during April. There is potential for more work depending on the number of volunteers and the amount of work done. In that case and if interested, you can work throughout the Spring quarter.
Here’s an Example:
You will be asked to focus on one Greenroads certified project. For larger projects, you will work only on a subset of project documents. Your task would then be to specify the type and weight of materials used in every bid item list that consists of some sort of material. The majority of road construction materials consists of rocks (i.e., soil and aggregates), concrete, asphalt, steel, aluminum, iron, and plastics (e.g., PVC). Some examples bid items are: aggregate embankments, geotextiles, pavements, curbs and gutters, stormwater and sanitary pipes, manholes, structural steel elements, guardrails, traffic signs, poles and mast arms, etc.
What is the Outcome?
This is part of a bigger research effort on sustainability assessment of highway construction projects. The main product would be a research paper to be submitted for a peer-reviewed journal. You will get recognition for your contribution to this work beside gaining personal/professional experience with official project design documentations.