Published Jun 28, 2024 by Alex Bengel

At the Wood Center on the University of Alaska’s Troth Yeddha Campus in Fairbanks, two rooms, side by side, showcase efforts to live sustainably in campus.

The Free Store was started on campus in 2014, and has been operating ever since.

Items donated to the store are available for students and others to make use of at no-cost. “The community donates to us as well as students. We get a lot during move-out each year. A lot of students come up, they buy things for their dorms, and that was one of the motivators for starting the Free Store, is students come up, they buy stuff, and then they just throw it away, so we kind of created this space that they could take all their things, and then students next semester get to pick it up for free,” said Christi Kemper, UAF Sustainability Coordinator.

Clothing, household items, shoes, hangers and more can be found at the store, organized by type. “Some people bring textbooks at the end of the semester,” said Kemper. “Those usually go pretty quick.”

Next door, the Upcycle Annex serves as a place where people can hang out and use discarded fabrics and other supplies to create new clothing with an artist’s touch. “This space”, Kemper said, “was started because we noticed a lot of items being brought the the Free Store that were just a little broken, maybe a shoe that just had a little part of the sole that kind of needed to be reattached, or clothing with small holes, that kind of thing.”

Sewing kits, irons, beads, manuals and more line the walls of the Upcycle Annex. “The idea was for it to be a permanent repair cafe space. Students could grab stuff from the Free Store, go next door, do any repairs or alterations that they wanted,” said the Sustainability Coordinator.

Published Jun 27, 2024 by Jasz Garrett

Alaska is at the forefront of using drone technology to better forecast and study disasters such as avalanches, according to Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) experts.

The research goal is to improve the speed and quality of information shared with the public.

About 40 UAS experts attended an interactive peer exchange in Juneau on Tuesday and Wednesday to witness the breakthrough technology used to monitor Alaska avalanches. Most of the event, hosted by the Alaska Department of Transportation and Federal Highway Administration, took place at the Alaska State Office Building.

The Alaska Center for Unmanned Systems Integration Alaska (ACUASI) UAS test site is operated by the University of Alaska Fairbank’s Geophysical Institute. It’s unique in that it’s a Federal Aviation Administration test site, an FAA Center of Excellence and one of the eight “beyond” partners for the FAA — all under one roof. FAA 14 CFR Part 107 requires drones to be flown in a line-of-sight, but being a test site and more in one location allowed leeway for development, according to John Robinson, director of operations for ACUASI at UAF.

ACUASI has partnered with DOT since its 2001 inception. Ryan Marlow is the UAS/Drone Program Coordinator for DOT. He oversees drone research and development for Alaska, working hands-on with remote sensing and drone technology.

“We started testing drone in a box with the avalanche program about two years ago,” he said. “We’ve been some of the first adopters in the nation of having the authority to fly them beyond visual line-of-sight. Because we are a governmental agency we can go after public aircraft operations, which gives us the ability to operate for emergencies like Wrangell, or avalanche conditions where there’s hazard to the public.”

In addition to the drone in a box, ACUASI is currently researching the complete integration of UAS into the airspace.

“Aviation is a big part of the Alaskan lifestyle,” John Robinson, director of operations for ACUASI at UAF, said. “And we’re trying to basically increase the safety case. So there are a lot of really dangerous things that you do with a pilot now in Alaska, that could be augmented with a large drone.”

One of the larger drones flown through 25 rural Alaska communities in Alaska was a full Cessna Grand Caravan.

“It went out and landed on gravel runways,” he said. “It talked to air traffic control; it avoided weather. The pilot said it was the most boring flight of his life because he didn’t have to do anything, so we’re working on those technologies to basically improve quality of life and bring that economic benefit to the state of Alaska.”