Get Involved with the Zoo Train Challenge

Name: Collab Lab 69: Celebrate & Re/Connect
Start: 2025-05-08T17:30:00-05:00
End: 2025-05-08T20:30:00-05:00
Location: WE Energies STEM Center at MSOE

If you’d like to get involved with the Zoo Train Challenge, let us know. We can keep you informed of opportunities for your school to participate, walk through options for supporting the initiatives, and keep you up to date as we move forward.

If you’d like to be an adviser or mentor to a student team, details are here.

Coal Handling Virtual Design Review
May 8, 2020

Covid-19 threw a wrench in our plans for the final design review for students engaged in our Zoo Train Challenge. MSOE had planned to play host for the session, but as schools and universities first closed and then moved on-line we adjusted as well. As schools reopened for distance learning, five teams were able to continue work on the challenge to redesign the process used to store and load coal for the Zoo’s steam locomotives. In most cases, they were forced to do so without the resources and physical prototypes they had started to produce. On Wednesday, four teams were able to join a review session on Zoom where they presented their ideas to and took questions from a review panel representing the advisory team for the project. That group included industry professionals from We Energies, Kumatsu, County Materials, as well as faculty and staff from MSOE and UWM’s College of Engineering & Applied Science. While the virtual format was less than ideal, two things stood out across the presentations. All of the teams were able to leverage feedback and ideas from the conceptual design review UWM hosted in December to improve not just their designs, but their ability to talk through and communicate their design decisions. When asked by panelists about where they saw value in the experience, students consistently mentioned both the experience of figuring out how to work effectively as a team, and the opportunity to leverage and learn from outside experts. Congratulations are due to all of the teams involved in the project. Thanks are also due to their teachers. Nothing interesting happens in a classroom without a teacher willing to say yes. Their willingness to involve their students in an open ended project, coordinate student participation in project events, and help their colleagues at other schools with ideas on how to manage project teams is the key ingredient in efforts like this. Zoo Train Schools and Teachers Elmbrook Launch – Ryan Osterberg Golda Meir – Tina Gleason Menomonee Falls – Robert Regent-Smith New Berlin Eisenhower – Devin McKinnon New Berlin West – Bill Trudell Pathways High School – Angelique Byrne/Chris Kjaer St. Joan Antida – Cynthia McLinn/Melissa Peppler St. Thomas More – Emily Pirkl Wauwatosa East – Julibeth Favour West Allis Dottke – Bernie McCarthy
UWM Hosts Zoo Train Design Review
December 18, 2019

This past Friday, UWM’s College of Engineering hosted the conceptual design review for students in this year’s Zoo Train Challenge. Teams from 10 area schools presented their ideas to re-work the coal handling process for the Zoo’s steam locomotives. The Zoo’s current process has train staff manually sift coal into 17 gallon buckets that may weigh 80 to 90 pounds when full. These are then carried over an often slippery, uneven surface where they are staged for use later in the day. When the train stops at the depot to take on passengers, the train crew will hoist and dump these bucket’s into the train’s coal bin, which is close to four feet above ground level. The train team is also concerned with the deteriorating condition of the coal bin and a retaining wall against which coal ash and fines are stored prior to removal. New Berlin Eisenhower students present their design concepts. (UWM Photo/Elora Hennessey) At this point in the process, most teams focused on the design of a new coal bin that could keep the coal sheltered from rain, and automating or augmenting the process of sifting and loading coal. Teams presented their designs to review panels that included zoo train operators, staff from We Energies coal handing facility, students and faculty from industrial engineering programs at UWM and MSOE, and engineers with GZA Environmental and Komatsu. Following each presentation, teams responded to questions and feedback from both panelists and peers from other teams. Both panelists and students in the audience for other presentations also provide written feedback for each team. Golda Meir students provide feedback on presentation by their peers . (UWM Photo/Elora Hennessey) Students will use the feedback and ideas they gained from this session to finalize their designs. The final design review for the project will be hosted by MSOE at the end of April. Nothing interesting happens in a classroom without a teacher willing to say yes, so we are extremely grateful to the teachers who stepped up to get their students involved. Thanks also to all those who helped pull both the project and review session together, and of course, the students who have taken on the challenge! UWM has a brief write-up of the event here: https://uwm.edu/news/gallery/milwaukee-area-students-create-solutions-for-zoo-train/ Zoo train Schools and Teachers Elmbrook Launch – Ryan Osterberg Golda Meir – Tina Gleason Menomonee Falls – Robert Regent-Smith New Berlin Eisenhower – Devin McKinnon New Berlin West – Bill Trudell Pathways High School – Angelique Byrne/Chris Kjaer St. Joan Antida – Cynthia McLinn/Melissa Peppler St. Thomas More – Emily Pirkl Wauwatosa East – Julibeth Favour West Allis Dottke – Bernie McCarthy
MATC Students Put Zoo Train on the Map
October 18, 2019

While MATC students were doing fieldwork to create a survey of the coal handling area for our Zoo Train Challenge, they took the time to shoot some 3D photos. Those images are now available on Google Maps, and give a good look at the site our Zoo Train students are focused on. [raw] [/raw] To view other images in the series, pull up the Zoo on Google Maps, and click the icon of the little person in the lower right corner of your browser
We Energies Hosts Site Tours for Zoo Train Students
October 18, 2019

Over the past two days, We Energies hosted four tours of their coal handling facility in Oak Creek for students in our Zoo Train Challenge. A team of five from We Energies walked students through the procedures they follow to safely store and move coal from when it arrives by train to when it is used in the power plant. On their tour of the facility, students were able to see the equipment and systems in use. What students learned about how to manage coal on a very large scale, they will now bring to bear as they think through how to revise the coal handling process at the Zoo.
Zoo Train Challenge for 2019-2020 Kick-Off
October 2, 2019

This year 140 students from 11 area schools will participate in our Zoo Train Challenge– redesign the coal handling process used for the Zoo’s steam locomotives. At yesterday’s kick-off event, students had a chance to visit the site, see what it’s like to lift a bushel bucket of coal, and meet their peers from other schools. Before we went into a Q & A session, we sat students at tables where they got to know peers from other schools and worked together to identify the questions they wanted to see answered at the session. That process was led by Dr. David Howell from MSOE, who brought along 13 MSOE student volunteers to help facilitate the work at each table. While students went through that work, teachers and industry advisers had a chance to meet and talk through how they will run the project in their classrooms. Two New Berlin students from last year’s challenge joined us for the event– one, who went to the school board for permission to retake the engineering class so she could participate this year, and a second who is now at MSOE, and came along to help.

Get Involved with the Zoo Train Challenge

2024-25 Collab Labs

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Collab Lab 69: Celebrate & Re/Connect