The 4 Walls Project helps the people of El Sauce, Nicaragua acquire a home. These homes are currently built with tin sheet metal roofs which are relatively expensive, make a lot of noise in the rain, create a large solar heat gain, and aren’t locally sourced. They would like to be able to build roofs that solve most, if not all of these issues and utilize an innovative material called Biochar, which would be sourced from local waste products. Along with researching this exciting new material, our group will design a roof that will solve many of the problems inherent with metal roofing and be resistant to the local weather and wildlife.

Our key goal for this project is to build and test a working prototype of the roofing material along with a mold for production. In addition, supporting documentation outlining construction and fabrication need to be created. Some key constraints of the product is that it will need to be able to stand up to the local climate including hurricanes and wildlife. It should also be easily transportable and install-able with local tooling. The product also needs to be sourced from local products (as much as possible) at a cheaper cost than the current metal roofing. The concept behind the project is to engineer a product that could improve the living conditions and quality of life for people in Nicaragua.

For more info see our Project Readiness Package: Project Readiness Package

Residents of El Sauce, Nicaragua stand next to their home built by The 4 Walls Project

Completed Project

You can look through the bottom tabs on this page to see the process taken for this project and to see the growth throughout the year. All of the final documents can be found in the Customer Handoff & Final Project Documentation Tab. A picture of our final prototype can be seen below.

Final Prototype Built

Project Name

Biochar Concrete Roofing Sheets for Nicaragua

Project Number

P16485

Project Family

Sustainable Technologies for the Global Marketplace

Start Term

2151

End Term

2152

Faculty Guide

Sarah Brownell, sabeie@rit.edu

Primary Customers

4 Walls Project: http://www.4wallsproject.org/

Ithaka Institute: http://www.ithaka-institut.org/en/home

Sponsor (financial support)

name(s), contact (TBD)

Project Management

Planning & Execution

Project Photos and Videos

Imagine RIT

Problem Definition

Systems Design

Subsystem Design

Preliminary Detailed Design

Detailed Design

Build & Test Prep

Subsystem Build & Test

Integrated System Build & Test

Integrated System Build & Test with Customer Demo

Customer Handoff & Final Project Documentation