As our campaign winds down, we'd just like to express our gratitude to all of our donors once again. Thanks to your generosity, ECOS can continue to build wheelchair ramps for Columbus-area residents in need, with leftover funds going to support a future project. Thanks again, supporters like you are what make community service possible!

As our final update, we'd like to highlight one of the long-running international projects that ECOS has conducted. Every spring break since 2005, students have traveled to the Montaña de Luz orphanage for children affected by HIV in Nueva Esperanza, Honduras. There, students construct engineering solutions to everyday problems faced by the orphanage. Recent projects include an organic waste and compost system, a hillside irrigation system, and vertical garden, and a passive solar water heater. For this year's trip, the students were awarded a grant from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and they will be installing solar panels that will power the orphanage. We can't wait to see how it turns out!

Thanks again, everyone!

Again, huge thanks to all of our generous donors. We’ve received 133% of our goal, and still counting! Every donation beyond our goal will go towards future projects.

Through the ECOS Wheelchair Ramp Buckeye Funder you’ve gotten to know about the Engineers for Community Service’s Wheelchair Ramps team. But the service does not stop there! ECOS has multiple active project teams performing different service activities in the Columbus community!

This week we would like to highlight the ECOS Bike Design Team! This ECOS team, lead by OSU senior Evan Martindale, designs and builds altered bicycles for children with special needs. This project was started just last year, and our first hand-crank bike for an orphan with HIV in Honduras will be completed this semester! This team brings together engineering design, welding, and project management to allow children with disabilities to exercise, play, and have fun with kids their age!

Supporting ECOS means supporting the children in the global community!

To start off, many thanks to everyone who has donated to the ECOS Wheelchair Ramp Project! We are thrilled to have surpassed our goal after less than half of the month! However, we are still accepting donations through February, and every dollar contributed will be used for future projects!

In addition to the Wheelchair Ramp and Westminster Computer Classes projects, a younger project within ECOS is the Humanitarian Engineering Scholars Homeless Shelter Design Project. This group is focused on helping the community’s homeless population. The group goes and volunteers at local homeless shelters and is also in the process of designing an economical portable shelter. The goal of this project is to get younger Ohio State Engineers involved both in community service and the design process. Many ideas from the members are drawn and discussed during the meetings, and then some are made into CAD models that the group can use to explain the function of components.

This group is designing and constructing a relatively cheap personal shelter that a homeless person could use to temporarily aid themselves in the process of finding a home. The general idea is that the shelter needs to be safe, weather resistant, and economical so that it can be funded easily.

The group has just finished the exo-skeleton portion of their design process, with it costing under $20 to construct. The skeleton expands to over 6 feet long and over 3 feet high, while compressing down to the size of a backpack!

A huge thank you to all of our generous donors! After only 9 days of the ECOS Buckeye Funder we are already at 76% of our goal! With only $280 more dollars we’ll have fully funded one ramp! As some of you know, ECOS is an organization comprised of diverse project teams. We’d like to highlight some of our other activities over the course of this campaign, so that friends of ECOS like you can get to know the many wonderful things that this organization stands for!

One such project that we would like to highlight is our Westminster Computer Classes team. Since 2007, ECOS members have traveled to the Westminster-Thurber Community, near downtown Columbus, to assist elderly residents with computer or other technical issues. Typically these questions pertain to topics such as Microsoft Office, setting up Facebook accounts, or connecting printers - tasks that university students have been accustomed to for almost their entire lives. Westminster has a strong team of committed volunteers, led by Jonathan Accurso, Anthony Antinone, and Corey Antinone.

Supporting ECOS means supporting the elderly in the Columbus community! Thank you again to our donors!