Middlebury
Engineering
Society
"Building Access to Engineering at Middlebury"
See the Stars
Participation Overview
Interests: This is a good project for people interested in sustainability, ecology, and astronomy.
Skills: Project management, 3D printing and CAD, sheet metal manipulation, communication and outreach.
Time Requirements: If you're interested in leading this project, we ask that you're willing to contribute 2-3 hours a week. If you're just looking to lend a hand, then we hope to see you at least 1 hour a week.
Where does the light pollution come from?
Street lamps! Most of the street lamps on the Middlebury campus don’t have caps and emit light upwards causing light pollution.
What does it affect?
In brief, this causes general ecological disruption meaning bats, birds, and other wildlife is impacted. This also affects our ability to see the stars! Although invisible on our campus, the Milky Way becomes visible when you venture only five miles from the college!
What are we planning to do about it?
We need more sustainable design on campus. Our club hopes to address this issue by creating and installing lamp tops on all the street lights.
Action Plan
Design and Prototype
Sign-off and Installation
Follow-up and Impact
We’ve already teamed up with the Middlebury grounds crew and got the green light to start building prototypes. This stage is all about creativity, testing, and tweaking ideas until they work. We’ve been using 3D printers to make mini versions of our light shades and exploring which materials would work best for full-size models. By the end of this phase, our goal is to have three strong contenders that strike the right balance between cost, durability, weight, and ease of installation.
Once we have solid prototypes, we’ll bring them back to the grounds team for feedback and approval. This means sharing what we’ve built, explaining why we made certain choices, and showing how the designs can make a difference. If we get the thumbs-up, we’ll install the prototypes in a small test area on campus so we can see how they perform in the real world.
After installation, we’ll track how the prototypes hold up over time and measure the difference they make in reducing light pollution. We’ll use what we learn to fine-tune the designs, making improvements where needed. The ultimate goal is to take what works best and roll it out across campus.
Get involved!
If you have any interest in sustainability, ecology, astronomy, innovation and design, or even just making a difference on the Middlebury campus, this could be the project for you! We're always looking for more hands and new skill sets, so join our GroupMe or shoot us an email and we will find a place for you in our team!