Fresno State engineering and construction management students as well as Sanger High School students gathered at the Satellite Student Union on Tuesday to show off more than 100 projects at the 11th annual Projects Day.

The annual event highlighted the hands-on projects made by the Lyles College of Engineering students.

“Engineering is really critical for our environment,” said Ram Nunna, dean of the Lyles College of Engineering. “The United States has very few engineers, compared to the jobs that are currently available. We need more people to pursue engineering.”

Fresno State students Abdulaziz Almudarra; Mario Mendis; Landan Yoshida; Fahad Al Sadhaan; and Reynaldo Vazquez created a portable shower. The group did so in hopes of improving upon issues with already existing portable showers.

“Its unique shape allows for easy set up,” Vazquez said. “The current portable showers — they don’t offer the elbow space that you need.”

Students Jose Garcia; Cesar Navarro; and Ivan Soto displayed their automated sorting machine. It sorts tomatoes by color and size — differentiating small tomatoes from large ones and green tomatoes from red ones.

Soto said they felt this machine would be applicable for the Central Valley, given its large agricultural industry.

Sanger High School students Daysia Torres; Keanu Lugo; and Mario Moctezuma created a composting machine. Torres said they were inspired to do this due to issues surrounding food waste.

“When you put a lot of food waste into landfills, it emits methane gases into air,” Torres said. “So, it also causes air pollution.”

She said they aimed to make their machine simple enough for people to use, even if they don’t know much about composting.

“We want to make it easier for consumers to compost at a household level,” Torres said. “Easier for the average person who may not take as much of an interest in it.”