OUR STORY

To Provide Simple, Efficient Solutions to the latrine problem in Third World Countries

Eco-Loo is a group that was formed in a collaborative class held at California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, CA . The students in this class were comprised of Engineers from Caltech as well as Design students from Art Center College of Design (Pasadena, CA).

E/ME 105 is a Mechanical Engineering class taught by Ken Pickar, titled Product Design for Developing Worlds. The target market that this class was dedicated to were the people of Guatemala. The class was started with a trip to Guatemala, the source itself, by a handful of representatives from the class. Rural cities were visited and local people were interviewed and bonded with.

The other participating school, Universidad de Landivar, located in Guatemala, was also a part of the class and a major resource. Six Industrial Design students from Landivar were assigned to groups, and two teachers, Oscar & Ovidio also collaborated with the class.

After finding the various issues that could be challenged by this class, different groups were formed by student preference. Bryce Butcher, George Cadena, Albert Ng, and Adrianne Stroup formed a group as the "Latrine team."

After much intensive research, presentations, explorations, designs, papers, and more, our design was found, as well as a passion for what may be looked at as a disgusting area of study--It actually proved to be very motivating!

The class formed us into a determined team who is in it for the long haul. After the class ended, we all agreed that we were still persistent to make this happen, leading us into a a future of product development for third world countries.