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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Embry-Riddle seniors Ange Durston-Ryan and Jonathan Brasch are both scheduled to graduate in May and both will leave their mark on the Daytona Beach Community. On Friday, Durston-Ryan and Brasch attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony to launch a solar powered aeration system at Hinson Middle School. This project evolved from the Embry-Riddle Civil Engineering department's previous work with Hinson and Hinson's inquiry into possible aeration systems for the western pond.
 
Durston-Ryan, a member of ERAU's women's soccer and track and field teams, and Brasch, a letterwinner in cross country and track, designed the waterfall pump aeration system as their Civil Engineering senior design project. The pump and solar panels, provided by Solar-Fit, will allow the waterfall system to run and aerate the pond on the Hinson campus at no cost to the school. The waterfall has been designed to allow maximum oxygen into the water to slow Eutrophication in the pond. The solar panels will be enclosed by a chain link fence, which was donated by Federal Rent-A-Fence.
 
Durston-Ryan and Brasch worked closely with Nita Manis, a seventh grade teacher at Hinson, and the Girls Get IT science club to design and build the waterfall, which will run solely off solar power. The waterfall is expected to provide many years of hands-on learning for present and future GGIT members with various science experiments performed in and around the pond, including dissolved oxygen levels, temperature and amounts of various nutrients, pH. GGIT is a club for female who are interested in science and engineering.
 
The project involved various aspects of Civil Engineering that have been covered through classes at ERAU including Land Surveying, Environmental Engineering, Structural Analysis, Hydraulics, Materials, Construction Management, AutoCAD, Soils and Foundations.