2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The 2025–26 academic year marks the seventh consecutive year of collaboration between X University’s mechanical engineering capstone course sequence, Research Institute, and Y University in Bangladesh to address the country’s severe air pollution caused by coal-fired brick kilns. Brick kilns contribute approximately 11% of Bangladesh’s annual PM2.5 emissions and 17% of CO₂ emissions, making them one of the nation’s largest sources of air pollution. The resulting health impacts are profound, including widespread respiratory illness, increased rates of childhood pneumonia, and an estimated 6,000 premature adult deaths each year. To mitigate these effects, successive student teams have developed and refined an automated coal feeder that allows continuous fuel deposition, improving combustion efficiency and reducing particulate emissions. The multi-year partnership enables continuity of learning and design iteration, as each cohort builds on prior work while addressing new technical and contextual challenges. Over seven years, project phases have included development of a feeder porthole attachment (Year 1), combustion efficiency improvements (Year 2), continuous coal feeding (Year 3), automated feeding (Year 4), reliability and multiport enhancements (Year 5), hopper and agitator redesign for manufacturability (Year 6), and scaling production using locally sourced materials (Year 7). This paper presents lessons learned from implementing a longitudinal capstone model that sustains community partnerships, deepens student engagement, and advances engineering solutions with measurable environmental and social impact.