The Water bottle mini filter (clean water for all)
During the creative engineering project my group ( myself, Sarah Teel, Shasta Parker, and Donnie Benitez) decided to try to solve a part of the unclean water crisis that is currently occurring in many developing countries; specifically Ethiopia, Somalia, and Madagascar. For our project we used a plastic water bottle, cotton, gauze, and charcoal.
Cotton cleaned out the flotsam and dirt
Gauze separated the layers
Charcoal absorbs some toxins specifically, Lithium (Eskalith, Lithobid), strong acids and bases, metals and inorganic minerals such as sodium, iron, lead, arsenic, iodine, fluorine, and boric acid.
We had originally wanted to use more layers but were short on time and the sand we had was impure and smelled of mold.]
The Filter
Cotton cleaned out the flotsam and dirt
Gauze separated the layers
Charcoal absorbs some toxins specifically, Lithium (Eskalith, Lithobid), strong acids and bases, metals and inorganic minerals such as sodium, iron, lead, arsenic, iodine, fluorine, and boric acid.
We had originally wanted to use more layers but were short on time and the sand we had was impure and smelled of mold.]
The Filter
![Picture](/uploads/3/8/1/0/38109369/1421428304.png)
This the water before our simple filter
This was after our filter
During this project my group and I learned how to work as a cohesive unit, we became efficient and we all pitched in with items and ideas. We were able to do plenty of research in the time we had and we put together a presentation pretty quickly but we lost a lot of time for building. We were not able to create the full sized filter as we hoped but we were able to make a small representation of some of the layers. I am unhappy with the fact that my group was not able to pull together more layers it would have been nice to use sand and clean gravel instead of cotton, gauze, and charcoal.
Steps for Engineering and Design
1:Identify the need - The need we found was unclean drinking water
2:Research the Problem - We found that 783 million people don't have clean drinking water and yet most Americans use an average of 600 liters daily
3:Develop possible solutions - Our possible solution was either to use a filter for purification or to use UV radiation to kill microorganisms
4:Select the most promising solution - The most promising and cheapest was to use a filter
5:Construct a prototype - As you saw above we made a simple handheld prototype
6:Test and evaluate the prototype - our prototype cleaned out most of the flotsam and dirt that was present in the water
7:Communicate the design - In front of the class my group and I presented our ideas and design to the audience
8:Redesign - No TIME
9:Repeat - No TIME
1:Identify the need - The need we found was unclean drinking water
2:Research the Problem - We found that 783 million people don't have clean drinking water and yet most Americans use an average of 600 liters daily
3:Develop possible solutions - Our possible solution was either to use a filter for purification or to use UV radiation to kill microorganisms
4:Select the most promising solution - The most promising and cheapest was to use a filter
5:Construct a prototype - As you saw above we made a simple handheld prototype
6:Test and evaluate the prototype - our prototype cleaned out most of the flotsam and dirt that was present in the water
7:Communicate the design - In front of the class my group and I presented our ideas and design to the audience
8:Redesign - No TIME
9:Repeat - No TIME