The newly formed Wastewater Design Team of the Mayor Frank G. Jackson Summer Youth Employment Program is aiming to use digitized graphics to help educate the public about the process of wastewater treatment.  

Supervisor Javae Brown, a 22-year-old recent graduate of The Cleveland Institute of Art with a Bachelor’s of fine arts in Game Design, said that the purpose of the team is to construct a 3D model of how the water travels through the system for the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District.  

The Wastewater Design Team used the Autodesk 3D Studio Max computer software. With this  software, little boxes called “vertices,” have been manipulated into various shapes. A team member, Ethan Solesto, 15, said he enjoyed learning this along with his fellow teammates Tallis Jones-Washington, 18, and Kevin Young, 16. 

These diagrams demonstrate how water gets cleaned and filtered.  They illustrate how water is taken from Lake Erie and sent back to residences, schools and various other locations, Brown said.  “The team will turn what they’ve learned into a portable display to be shown at the End of Event Celebration of the Mayor Frank G. Jackson Summer Youth Employment Program. This display will be passed on to [the] NEORSD staff to be shown at schools and community events where a wastewater treatment plant tour may not be available,” Brown said. Brown went on to say, “The team is faced with the challenge of using 3D graphics that adults can appreciate while still keeping the display simple enough for a child to understand.”

Mastering these techniques takes patience, and the team worked at the computers for considerable amounts of time each workday, usually in the roomy cafeteria.   Exposure to the virtual 3D model will open doors to teammates’ careers in the future.  “Telling an engaging and compelling story, the Wastewater Design Team has a big task ahead of them. With their dedication and momentum, they will tackle it head on and create something that both the   Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District and the City of Cleveland can be proud of,” said Brown.

In June, the Wastewater Design Team visited the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District Wastewater Treatment Plant. This experience has allowed the young team members to see what happens to wastewater.

The team more than willingly toured and observed the different functions of the plant and saw the step-by-step process of how waste is extracted from the water.   At the conclusion of the tour of the Easterly Wastewater Treatment Plant, Jones-Washington asked a plant worker, “How can I get a job here?”