CEBL: The World In A Garden

As our project was one that could be built, we gave the community both a tangible return and a plan.  We provided them with the means to recreate the living fence in various places to suit their needs, as well as the actual fence itself, which they can grow their various herbs and plants in to be shared amongst the community.

We ended up learning a lot about project management.  It has become evident the true need for strong communication, without which makes project development stagnate.  We also noted the need for proper planning, both in the design phase and pre-design phase.  Neglecting even the smallest details can become disastrous.

This project helped to show us the true effort that goes into even the simplest of Engineering projects.

Figure 1: Poster summarizing the “Living” Fence project

Figure 2: Prototype of fence completed

This blog post will deal with how we implemented our plan for the project, including installation, organization, safety aspects, mistakes and changes in procedure.

In our original plan, day one would involve cutting the bamboo poles into 4 foot sections, and this would be completed by Riley, Shane and Nolan. Team members were expected to bring safety equipment (such as goggles) with them to the site as the client was unable to provide them.

Upon arrival to the site, it was realized that none of the team members actually had goggles, and there was a short wait while Nolan and Riley went to buy some. Soon after they had returned, marking and cutting of the bamboo began. Gloves were provided by the client, as was a generator, 2 battery-powered drills, a gas powered hole digger, a chop-saw and shovels. We were required to obtain our own first-aid kit, and brought a drill to be powered by the generator as well as two hand-saws and a hockey stick (to knock out sections of bamboo).

Due to weather conditions, a light rain which became heavy downpour later in the day, the generator was unsafe to use and as such neither was the electrically powered chop-saw. This meant that once every pole had been marked for cutting, it would have had to be done using the two-hand saws we brought to the site. The need for the hand-saws was an unexpected event, and caused a longer timeframe for cutting than expected. Nonetheless, we were able to have every pole cut by the end of the day with time to spare, meeting plan objectives.

Once the poles had been cut, we began to knock out sections from the bamboo, which proved to be much more difficult than originally expected. Our original plan had this portion taking only an hour, but due to the limitations of the equipment we used (only had one hockey stick) and misguided assumption that the sections would not be very sturdy meant that we spent roughly 2 hours to complete less than half of the bamboo poles. After a short time we decided to try out the post-hole digger and found it to be very effective. Shortly after this, Riley noticed a sign informing us not to dig lower than 1 foot due to electrical wires near the site. We gave the client a call, and though she was not aware of the wires she was unconcerned about them and wished us to continue digging. Instead we decided to continue knocking out sections and Riley contacted Susan Nesbit to gain her advice. At this time, the rain began to pour more strongly, worked slowed, and when our mentor arrived to survey our work we decided to end and continue on the next day.

For day 2 we had a number of objectives we wished to see completed, namely knocking out the remaining sections and drilling holes in bamboo, holes in the ground, planting and filling of the poles. With only a day left, everyone in the team showed up early (except Nolan) to help. Upon arrival, it was decided that due to time constraints we would not be able to complete the entire project, and instead we would attempt to get prototypes in the ground for the client’s volunteers to continue once we could not. This meant that no more sections would be knocked out; instead we focused on drilling and planting the fence.

With some team members working on drilling, it turned out that the drills provided by the client were very low on battery power. When we attempted to start the generator, the cord broke and we were left with very little power to work with, further restricting the amount of work we would be able to finish. Team members drilled holes in the bamboo until the power ran out, and using the gas powered digger we dug a number of holes and planted our prototypes. Confident that the volunteers would see our prototypes and be able to continue our work, we called it a day and forwarded instructions to the client.

In the end, we managed to complete a functional fence on a small portion of the site, with instructions to enable others to finish the project in the future. We completed some objectives, such as cutting the bamboo and planting some poles, but had limited success on others (knocking out sections, drilling holes in poles) and were unable to complete some entirely (planting herbs). As we managed to complete some of the fence, we consider our project to be a moderate success.

This post will address the most important details of our project plan. All stages will be completed onsite at the World in a Garden.

Here is a list of the necessary tasks we need to complete along with the responsible members, the required equipment, the cost, and the expected completion dates.

Necessary Tasks

1. Cut bamboo

• Riley, Nolan, and Shane will be responsible for cutting all 80 poles in two

• We require multiple table saws, clamps, safety goggles, and gloves. To insure a safe workplace, all members will wear their goggles and gloves at all times while working onsite

• The estimated cost of the bamboo is $1000 and the estimated cost to rent the table saw is ~$40/day. The only other “cost” would be time, as this stage may take an entire day to finish. The client is expected to cover all the monetary costs

• The cutting of the bamboo is expected to be completed on March 22nd

2. Break the “seals”

• All team members will help with this stage

• The only equipment we need are multiple shovels/brooms to use the stick end to jam out the “seals” removing the sections

• This stage should not cost any money and should only take an hour to complete

• We are hoping to finish this stage on March 22nd

3. Drill bamboo

• Kieran, Payam, and Adam will be responsible for drilling three 1.5 inch holes in each pole for the plants and one ½ inch hole near the top for the irrigation system

• We require multiple drills with drill bits, a power source, safety goggles, and gloves

• The drills will be provided by the client so there is no monetary cost.

• The drilling of the bamboo is expected to take 4 hours and be completed on March 23rd

4. Plant bamboo and fill with soil, plants, and herbs

• All team members will complete this stage together

• We require post-hole diggers, funnels and the soil to be ready onsite on March 23rd

• If there is not enough soil already onsite, the estimated cost of the soil required is $5. The client is expected to cover all the monetary costs

• We are hoping to finish filling and planting the herbs by March 23rd

Figure 1: Bamboo that will be erected into a “living” fence

(Image: http://www.bambooworld.com)

Work Schedule

Indicators of Success

This project will be considered a success if we manage to erect at least a section of the bamboo fence that is able to support and grow a variety of plants and herbs within it. Also, we hope to keep our client, World in a Garden, satisfied with the product we produce and we hope that we can inspire them to finish building the fence if we run out of time. Having a working irrigation system would be a bonus considering the tight timeline we are working with.

This blog post will present an overview of the process our team took in order to design the project outlined by the World in a Garden organization.

The project outline was to create a “living” fence made of bamboo that has plants/herbs growing within the bamboo.  The purpose of the project was to optimize the efficiency of the space used in the garden.

Brainstorming:

1. The Pole:

• First we decided poles should be about four feet long; Approximately one foot buried for stability, and thus making the fence about 3 feet tall. Also, the poles are to be spaced with one foot gaps.

• Second we discussed the holes we would be cutting in the poles;  After some debate we decided on circular holes because they would be the  easiest to install (opposed to oval holes), as well as being very well suited for the “planting” process because the herbs come in preprocessed circular containers.

• The stability of the fence was the next issue to be discussed.  At first we thought we would just bury about a foot of each pole, but we then realized it would need more stability so we considered connecting them with wire.  The wire would help hold the fence up, but since it would serve no other purpose we concluded that replacing this wire with an irrigation system was our best option.

• Another idea we decided on was to build concreted bases for the poles in the corners.  These poles would need to be extra stable due to the extra load they will take from the irrigation system.

2. The Irrigation System:

• The system would connect all the poles via a hose slotted into the top of each pole.

• The distance needed to span is approximately 160 feet, which is manageable for this design.

• A problem we ran into was transferring the water to each section of the bamboo (bamboo has sealed sections).  In order accommodate to our design we decided it would be easiest to simply break these “seals” (via jamming a rod of some sort down the shaft of the bamboo) and filling each pole full of soil to hold the herbs in place (at the holes where they will be planted).

Diagrams:

Figure 1: Diagram of pole design

 Figure 2: Diagram of corner pole with concrete                  

Figure 3:  Overhead diagram of the garden fence

Timeline:

February 12: First meeting with client

March 7: Design is finalized

March 10: Order required items

March 12: Visit site to check ground stability, and other environmental parameters

March 14: Bamboo arrives on site

March 15: Begin construction

March 23: Finish construction

The World in a Garden is an organization that focuses on educating the community and working working on various urban projects to help teach community members about the importance of nutrition health and how to grow your own food.  They have farms located between East and West Boulevard at 57th &  55th Avenue in Vancouver. It spans alongside the railroad tracks.  Each farm contains various foods from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds to maintain and spread culture diversity.

While they are currently a smaller organization, they eventually hope to work on a global level and create similar projects in various third world countries.  Ultimately they wish to create ten similar, large impacting gardens in ten different countries.

The ultimate goal of the living fence project is to develop a design that can be recreated and implemented in other various farms to maximize the usable space.  As the project stands now, the goal is to create a fence out of bamboo from which various herbs will grow.  Community members can then come and pick the herb to use in their home cooking.

The project is fairly open to change and as a result most of the constraints are mobile.

The non-negotiable constraints are:

                   -the perimeter length must be 25ft by 55ft

                   -the fence must be made out of bamboo

                   -a watering system needs to be in place

                  -it must be possible for the design to be re-created

The negotiable constraints are:

                  -spacing between bamboo

                  -irrigation method

                  -hole dimensions in bamboo for herbs

                  -work schedule (to small degree)

                  -cost

                  -general design of overall project

The fence needs to be easy to replicate and flexible in implementation.  Multiple designs will have to be proposed to fulfill this requirement.  We must also consider that the re-creation of this fence will not be done by engineers so the design has to be simple enough for everyone to understand.  As a result the fence has to functional and practical without unnecessary clutter.

In order to achieve these goals a large amount of brainstorming and minor testing will be required to ensure success.  This could mean the early ordering of bamboo to test a few various model ideas to understand which works best.  Ultimately success will be based on the number of diverse and creative concepts that are brought forth to the group.

As this is our first post to this blog I will introduce our team and our purpose!

Our CBEL project team consists of 6 members; Payam Mazloum, Kieran Bertsch, Shane Duke, Riley Jang, Adam Ostereicher and myself (Nolan Wiebe).  We are all second year Civil Engineering Students at UBC Vancouver and we will be working with the World in a Garden organization.  Here is a little about ourselves:

I am  from Terrace BC and I am really excited to be studying Civil Engineering in Vancouver.  I enjoy hiking, kayaking, snowboarding and the outdoors in general.  I look forward to working on this project and meeting the people  involved with World in a Garden!

Adam Ostereicher was born and raised in the lower mainland. He is especially excited about working on a project where he can give back to the community he grew up in.  His interests outside of Engineering include soccer, baseball and climbing.  He looks forward to seeing how the project will unfold.

Kieran Bertsch chose to pursue a career in civil engineering because he has always been interested in how structures work and how to build them. Outside of school, his passion is tennis. He has competed in professional tournaments around the world while also backpacking and exploring as many countries as he could. He looks forward to working on this project for The World in a Garden and gaining new experiences in the “real” world.

Shane Duke is very interested in structures and the materials that make up our modern world, and how modern projects interact with societies at large. Apart from engineering, Shane is a big fan of hockey and soccer, and works part-time as a soccer referee. For the World in a Garden project, Shane hopes to help produce the most productive and rewarding CBEL fence of all time.

Payam Mazloum was born and raised in Malawi, completed his High School with an IB diploma, worked as a professional photographer and voluntarily served in the Department of Security at the Baha’i World Centre, Haifa, Israel. He also worked with Engineers Without Borders Malawi and is continuing to strive to be of service to the community around him. Working with World in a Garden will be an excellent opportunity for him to continue doing so in Vancouver.

Riley Jang grew up in Delta, BC, and he hopes that his career in civil engineering will make an impact on the importance of sustainability.  He loves the outdoors, with camping being one of his favorite vacations, as well as being big fan of athletic accomplishments. He is excited to work with World in a Garden, and the implications of sustainability in this project have him very excited. He hopes that this CBEL assignment will provide some valuable project experience, especially because it is aimed at one of his top career goals.

Our team is very excited to work alongside World in a Garden and benefit the community around us.  We feel our experience with World in a Garden will build us up as engineers.

World in a Garden upholds many great community and environmental values and the project we will be working together on reflects that.  The idea behind our project is to increase food production in small spaces so we will be building a unique fence made from bamboo, and we will grow plants in the fence.

Welcome to your CBEL project blog!