BUTTE — Hundreds of Montana Tech students presented projects they’ve been working on for months at the 13th annual Techxpo Design Showcase event on Thursday in Butte.
Projects from teams of engineering students in various fields are presented to judges and include months of research.
One team made up of three environmental engineering students and three mechanical engineering students utilized drone technology to tackle the problem of remediation in remote mining areas.
"There’s a lot of mining claims in places in Montana and around the western United States that aren’t very accessible with traditional remediation methods, so the idea of this project is to create a design that would take the human aspect out of it to make it more safe and to make it more effective for those areas that we can’t get to," says Johannes Chandler, a senior environmental engineering student.
Chandler and other seniors on the project combined their talents to design a drone that could be used in remote mining landscapes for remediation where large excavators and haul trucks might not be able to access.
The environmental students created a soil amendment with a combination of bio char and native seeds while the mechanical engineers designed a ground drone that carries the mixture and applies it to contaminated soil.
Chandler says more work still needs to be done on the project and he hopes future students can participate in the concept.
