Month: February 2012

Ah, at last! From concept to build, we’ve finally put together our project at the Evergreen site. Last Tuesday (the 14th), our team went down to Evergreen and we spent around an hour and a half building the irrigation system. The weather was pretty good, and we even got a little sunshine halfway through the build. When we came there the client had already bought all the supplies and had them ready for us. The process was really smooth and seamless and we all worked together to finish the project. There were no build “surprises” or missing pieces and the final product turned out exactly the way we had envisioned it. The client was really impressed with our work and we even explained how everything was connected in case they wanted to expand the system to the rest of the planter boxes. Unfortunately, however, the one thing that we didn’t get to do was actually try our irrigation system! The BCIT green building had their water turned off for the winter and so we couldn’t test our product. But once it gets warmer we hope the client will have a chance to test it out and see how it works. We are pretty confident that everything will work well and that the clients needs will be fully met. Below are some shots of the building process and the final product, enjoy! (Click on a picture for a bigger size).

 

Well, there’s a week left until reading break at UBC and our CSL project is coming together really nicely, in fact we’re almost there! So, here’s the update so far. After our site visit last week, we met up as a team and discussed exactly what we wanted our final solution to look like and how we plan on implementing it. We settled on a product by sold by Lee Valley that perfectly fits the criteria for our irrigation system. We then picked out all the necessary parts and tools required for the system and wrote a brief proposal for the client. The proposal included two potential systems that could be implemented, a detailed cost breakdown (including taxes), a schematic of how the irrigation system fits in, and a general overview of how we would build it and how it would function. (See the sample screen shots of the proposal below). We sent this proposal to the client and got a response almost immediately! The client really liked the proposal and chose the drip irrigation system over the row garden system (as did we). The client even proposed to pick up the materials and have them ready for us when we go to build the system next week. However, the system that we decided to build is not going to be a full scale irrigation system, rather it is going to be a sample system that we are going to try out on only a few planter boxes. If the client is satisfied with our solution then we will either provide documentation on how to complete it, or we will finish implementing the system on the rest of the site. We are all looking forward to the build date and hope that all works out well. Until next time!

Introduction (part of the proposal)

A schematic of the system (part of the proposal)

 

Today we finally managed to get out of lectures and labs and went down to Evergreen for our first site visit. While there, we were able to take note of site restraints, assessed the planter boxes, and made all the required measurements of the planter boxes. The area for our project is approximately 10,000 sq. ft (26m x 30m). There are 29 planter boxes in total: 17 big planters (7’x7′), and 12 small planters (8’x22″). These include 2 apple trees and various kids of berry bushes. There is quite some room between all of them, which means that integrating the irrigation system will not be a problem. We also found out that the planter boxes will not stay put permanently like they are right now, but will most likely be moved sometime in the near future. This means that out irrigation system of choice will have to be one that can be easily disassembled and put together again if the boxes were to be moved. In addition, we are not allowed to bury any hoses underground. While there we decided that we will choose several irrigation systems, present them to the client, and perhaps even test one on 2-4 irrigation boxes to see how it will work. Finally, we decided to give the client a complete proposal for irrigation system choices by the end of next week. Below are some pictures of our site visit, enjoy!