EPICS (Engineering Projects In Community Service) Final Exhibition

A Successful EPICS Final Presentation!

On Thursday, May 29th, Prospect Hill Academy teachers, students, administrators and board members witnessed the successful completion of the first-ever EPICS final presentation by PHA high school seniors. EPICS, which stands for Engineering Projects in Community Service, is a service learning engineering course that allows high school students to engage with the engineering design process by partnering with non-profit organizations in the community. The EPICS program began at Purdue University as an undergraduate program and is currently being piloted at 20 secondary schools nation-wide.

In the pilot year of the EPICS program at Prospect Hill Academy, the nine students comprising the EPICS team designed and constructed a mobile Green Roof Kiosk, which is intended to educate the public about the importance of Green Roof technology in the 21st Century economy. In their final presentation, the students discussed the benefits of green roofs, the steps to successful green roof construction, and the process of creating the Kiosk. Ultimately, the goal is for the Kiosk to be utilized by GroundWork Somerville, an environmental non-profit organization, and by a local green roof installer, Apex Green Roofs.

Five community members judged this final presentation including Professor Ari Epstein and Camilla Shannon from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Colleen Butler, a graduate student at Tufts University, Nancy Bernhard, a GroundWork Somerville board member, and Charles Sinkler, a landscape architect from Apex Green Roofs. The judges were deeply impressed by the pilot project and are now working with PHA faculty members to locate a local site on which to design and construct a green roof as an integral component of next year’s EPICS Green Roof course. Please see the below picture to view their final product.