Project History: For this project we were given task of solving a problem. My group decided that since were in a drought, it would be a good idea to do something o help prevent it. We wanted to do something that had not been invented, but it seemed that every idea we had, had already been invented. Finally, we decided to do desalination. We were going to desalinate salt water by boiling it. This would help the drought by taking water out of the oceans instead of the reservoir, although eventually the ocean level would go down. We made a working model in class. We wanted our product to be very useful and we wanted it to inexpensive so everyone can use and afford our product. For our project we boiled the salt water in a teapot over a portable stove. We attached a pipe to the nozzle and made it air tight. We then attached the pipe to a cup and made that air tight. When the water evaporated, it would go through the pie and into the cup, leaving the salt behind. You will have clean water and fresh salt!
Engineering Design Cycle
Content:
We used the Engineering Design Cycle in this project.
We used the Engineering Design Cycle in this project.
- Identify the Need- CA drought
- Research the Problem: 80% of CA in trought
- Develop Possible Solutions: desalination
- Select the Most Promising Solution: desalination
- Construct a Prototype: We made a CAD drawing
- Test and Evaluate the Prototype: produced 9ml/min of fresh, clean water
- Communicate the Design: We presented our design to the class
- Redesign:we went through different materials such as teapots and pipes to see which worked the best.
- Repeat
Reflection: Overall I thought my group worked really well together. We all contributed and all learned many things along the way. I learned so many things about the California drought and how it is really effecting us and our environment. I think my group had a great time working on our project. We stayed focused and tried to manage our time. At the beginning of the project things were a little slow because we were trying to figure out what we wanted to do and that took about two days to decided but we ended up having enough time for everything. It was great to see our product being able to work!