Six MSOE students and two faculty members brought computers, teaching supplies, school supplies, school yard equipment and gifts to the children of a small village in Inner Mongolia. The planning for this trip took place over the prior ten week quarter where students collected supplies and raised money. The group was able to provide the school with their first computers and gave supplies to teachers that aided them in preparing future lesson plans.

Students involved in Engineers Without Borders traveled to Muculinquiaj, Guatemala to help build a reinforced concrete vehicular bridge. The village asked for help improving their sole access road which links them to the regional road system and the larger city. Prior to the bridge the road was impassable during the rainy season which left many residents without reliable access to marketplaces, healthcare, and schools.

The office of Servant Leadership teamed up with Project Community Computers to provide resources for schools in Dzilam de Bravo, Mexico. The town has a population of 2,500 and its main income is fishing. The town has five schools and was in great need of computers. It was decided that eight laptops would be donated to each school so that all kids could have access to them.

Arsalon Amini-Hajibashi and Dr. Davis traveled to Nepal to conduct research for the Chisang Clinic. The Chisang Clinic is a nonprofit medical facility aimed at providing the Nepalese with proper health services. Western medicine has been recently brought to many isolated villages and has led to mistrust in Nepal’s loosely regulated medical facilities. The two along with clinic staff conducted research to try to better understand the attitudes and beliefs of the local villagers with regard to western medicine and try to establish common ground between cultural beliefs and modern medicine.

Representatives from MSOE and Lawrence University visited Njala University to install a computer lab in the biological science department. Njala University is the major science university in Sierra Leone and was attacked in 1995 by rebels who burned over 60 buildings and killed many faculty members. In 2009 the campus was reopened, but it still lacks adequately equipped facilities. Prior to the trip the biology department only had one computer for all faculty and students.

Professor Leitzke led three students to Padibe, Uganda. The previous year one of these students helped to design a building to house a sunflower press for the village. As a result of the sunflower press the GDP of Uganda has increased by 2%. This year’s group from MSOE returned to teach the people of Padibe best practices in making concrete for use in constructing light-weight latrine slabs with bamboo reinforcement. As part of a cultural exchange, the elders in the village taught the group how to build a traditional Acholi hut.

Many of our own students experience hunger. With this in mind, the TRIO office worked collaboratively with Student Activities to create a food pantry, a resource for students who need additional resources in order to continue down the academic path.

Milwaukee Empty Bowls has been hosting events for the past 15 years to raise funds for food pantries in Milwaukee and has raised over $500,000 so far. Empty Bowls invites the community to attend an event where each participant receives a hand-crafted bowl made by a local artisan, the bowl is then filled with soup donated by local restaurants, and all proceeds go to local food pantries. This past year it was hosted in the Kern Center.

The student chapter for the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) provided after-school tutoring at MSOE for elementary school students who participate in Our Next Generation after-school program. The group meets once a week as part of an ongoing initiative to provide outbound educational opportunities for ONG students.

Project Community Computers was a student organization that provided refurbished laptops and computer labs for local and international organizations that can benefit from updated technology. This year PCC has donated computers to a number of local and international communities.

Ronald McDonald House Charities of Eastern Wisconsin Is dedicated to easing the burden of families whose lives have been disrupted as a result of their child’s illness or injury. Servant-Leadership contributes by purchasing food for monthly meals. Some students from MSOE purchase food and prepare and serve it to families once a month.

Tim DeLeo, an Air Force veteran and EE student at MSOE developed the interactive robot in an independent study called Project Management and Servant Leadership. Funding for this robot was provided by the Brady Corp. The robot helps children learn and have fun at the same time. The interactive display includes information about a bee’s life, based on the book’s content.

Project Community Computers worked with the YMCA of Greater Milwaukee. PCC contributed 15 refurbished laptop computers to inner-city kids participating in the YMCA Sponsor-a-scholar program. The computers were donated by the IT department at MSOE. These students, many of whom have no access to computer technology at home, can now engage in homework assignments more easily as they prepare for their post-secondary education pursuits.

The initiative is an effort to bring technology into St. Joseph Comprehensive High School in Cameroon, Africa. The project management team’s goal was to provide marketing material for further promotion and awareness of the Cameroon initiative.

The COA Youth and Family Center in Riverwest asked that a group of our project management students redesign the lower level of its facility to include an additional classroom and library. During the spring term students implemented the plan that was laid out during the winter.

The Family Enrichment Center provides a common, shared space for multiple non-profits to work from. This group’s goal was to create a user-friendly database for the FEC which will track expected future expenditures for the upkeep of their facilities which they can update on their own.

The goal of this project is to supply single phase power to the Fondy Foods Farm for their use on site which allows for a potential increase in electrical capabilities. Now the farm has single phase power available on site with three phase power still working correctly there is the potential for electrical expansion in the future as the farm grows.

Teenwater.com, the Milwaukee Water Council’s education water website, wanted to create an interactive water game to engage and teach local students about water issues. The project management team came up with the game “The Fish Trip”.

The North Point Lighthouse Academy Charter School is part of a national non-profit that is dedicated to ensuring a college education for students who would otherwise face a future with limited opportunities. Dr. Howell offered a creative writing workshop for the students and the project management group published the poems and organized a poetry reading so the students could show off their work in front of their family and friends.

Meta House helps women struggling with drug and alcohol addiction reclaim their lives and rebuild their families. The project consisted of renovating a basement room to provide Meta House with a welcoming and multipurpose environment. The renovations include remodeling and childproofing the room.

Robyn’s Nest Donation Center is associated with Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin Community Services. The donation center supplies clothing to a range of 1200 to 2000 families annually. Students renovated and organized the donation center to better serve the volunteers and families.

St. Joseph Academy is an elementary school located in an old church in South Milwaukee. The school is having a lot of success and growing rapidly, but are running out of space for classrooms. Students were asked to develop a plan to expand for future classrooms. Multiple plans were developed and evaluated based on criteria determined by SJA.

TEDx Talks are a community level TED event that provide a showcase for speakers presenting innovative and ingenious ideas. MSOE students and the Made in Milwaukee Organization gathered great local individuals whose presentations directly focus on current issues Milwaukee is facing. The goal was to inspire the community with ideas created in their own neighborhood.

The Wisconsin Conservatory of Music offered to establish a music program for the deaf featuring the finalized violin that will open opportunities for deaf children to experience music with the new violin haptic feedback system. The second part of this project involved building the prototype.