May / June, 2001

Biosystems Engineering Students are Winners
in Seeking Sustainable Solutions
(Reprinted from the College of Engineering Currents Magazine, by Laura Luptowski )

Biosystems Engineering students are seeking sustainable solutions. And they are coming up with winning ideas.

Several students in the Department of Agricultural Engineering have won design competitions during the past few months.

Last spring, a team of six students traveled to Las Cruces, New Mexico, and won first place in the 10th Annual International Environmental Design Contest sponsored by WERC: A Consortium for Environmental Education and Technology Development. It was the first time ever that Biosystems Engineering had a team in the competition. Jennifer Davis, Keith Depp, Patricia Huddas, Jamie McConville, April Pasutti, and Sharon Vennix took first place in the Task 6 category of the competition -- Pathogen Detection on Fresh Fruits and Vegetables. WERC awards a cash prize and trophy to the first place team in each task.

Using raw sewage for soil amendment is not allowed in the U.S. agricultural industry, but foreign farms may use sewage sludge on their fields. Since it is impossible for U.S. agencies to inspect foreign farms' fertilizer practices, there is concern over the safety of imported fruits and vegetables.

The students developed a method using chemiluminescence to reveal the presence of Salmonella (a human pathogen) at concentrations of 10 colony forming units (cfu) per ml or greater. The test requires only six hours to complete, as opposed to the FDA's current method, which requires 72 hours. This same team garnered first place in the MSU University Undergraduate Research and Arts Forum last year.

This year's team, Megan Laird, Molly O'Flaherty, Nichole Ritchie, Kathryn Streams, and Maria Suparno, also took a first place in April in WERC's 11th Annual International Environmental Design Contest in Las Cruces, New Mexico. The team's task was to demonstrate a novel process that can rapidly determine whether fruits and vegetables have been subjected to fecal contamination.

The team developed a detection method in which fecal contamination is revealed by a chemiluminescent reagent that emits light only in the presence of beta-galactosidase, an enzyme peculiar to coliform bacteria. Concentrations as low as 10 cfu per ml can be detected in about seven hours. The FDA's current method requires 24 hours.

This same team had placed second in the MSU University Undergraduate Research and Arts Forum with their presentation earlier in the month.

According to Evangelyn Alocilja, assistant professor in the Department of Agricultural Engineering and the WERC competition team advisor, "Developing rapid methods for detecting human pathogens of animal origin is critical for food and environmental safety, consumer protection and health, and sustainability of agriculture and food industries."

In another competition, sponsored by the American Society of Agricultural Engineers (ASAE), an MSU team won first place out of 27 entries for a drain tile laying system. Kris Wardin and John Phillips designed, built, and field tested an Estate-Scale Tiling System. Their project is unique in that a lot of other designs stop at the drawing and computer animation stages; Wardin and Phillips carried theirs out to the actual testing phase. The objective of their system, which is designed for use on public golf courses in Michigan, is to reduce the amount of time and labor involved in the tile-laying process. Optimal drainage allows players to use the course soon after a rainfall, resulting in a more profitable business.

pdf file on winning students
Read more on this years first place team.

Agricultural Engineering
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May 23, 2001