Creative Engineering Project
This project was definitely different than all the other ones we have done because this one had a wide range of ideas we could have done. Our task was to look at a bunch of world problems and find one that we wanted to try and try to find a solution to. We decided to choose the problem of people drinking dirty water. We decided this was a very broad subject so we needed to find a way to narrow it down to something simple enough that we could do something to help this problem. We finally decided that the best way to help make water cleaner was to make a water filter. We especially wanted to make a water filter when we were researching and found out that 5,000 children die every day from lack of clean water, and just by drinking out of dirty streams. We found that places in Africa such as Somalia and Madagascar are the places where there is the most dirty water, and the sickest people. After looking up some pictures to get a better visual, we were hooked, we had to find a way to help these children. We then had to figure out what kind of filter we wanted to make. We figured it had to be cheap but workable, so we researched as many types of water filters and items that filter out water as we could.
We then had to figure out what we wanted to filter out of the water, so we had to find out what was harmful in the water that these people were drinking. We found the most harmful things in their water was the bacteria and micro organisms. So then we did a lot of researching about how to get those things out of the water. We found out some things like cotton balls, gauze, and sponges can filter out the dirt and some bacteria. We looked further into filtering out bacteria and found that charcoal is really good at filtering out bad bacteria, so we decided that we had to have that in our filter. We then had to tackle the micro organisms, and we figured out that those can only be killed by UV light. Unfortunately we didn't have access to any UV light so that prevented us from making out filter fully functional for cleaning out all the harmful things in water.
We then had to figure out what we wanted to filter out of the water, so we had to find out what was harmful in the water that these people were drinking. We found the most harmful things in their water was the bacteria and micro organisms. So then we did a lot of researching about how to get those things out of the water. We found out some things like cotton balls, gauze, and sponges can filter out the dirt and some bacteria. We looked further into filtering out bacteria and found that charcoal is really good at filtering out bad bacteria, so we decided that we had to have that in our filter. We then had to tackle the micro organisms, and we figured out that those can only be killed by UV light. Unfortunately we didn't have access to any UV light so that prevented us from making out filter fully functional for cleaning out all the harmful things in water.
Content
Engineering design cycle
1. Identify the need 1. We made a giant list of world problems and we all picked one that we really wanted to try and fix
2. Research the problem 2. In class we spent about two days researching as much as we could about the problem
3. Develop possible solution 3. After all our research we figured that the best way to fix our problem was to make a water filter
4. Select the most promising solution 4. The most promising solution we could find was a water filter that could filter out dirt and bacteria
5. Construct a prototype 5. We used a water bottle and a few filtering items to make our filter
6. Test and evaluate prototype 6. We tested the different types of filterable items and saw which ones worked the best
7. Communicate the design 7. Finally we presented our design to the rest of our class
9. Repeat
Engineering design cycle
1. Identify the need 1. We made a giant list of world problems and we all picked one that we really wanted to try and fix
2. Research the problem 2. In class we spent about two days researching as much as we could about the problem
3. Develop possible solution 3. After all our research we figured that the best way to fix our problem was to make a water filter
4. Select the most promising solution 4. The most promising solution we could find was a water filter that could filter out dirt and bacteria
5. Construct a prototype 5. We used a water bottle and a few filtering items to make our filter
6. Test and evaluate prototype 6. We tested the different types of filterable items and saw which ones worked the best
7. Communicate the design 7. Finally we presented our design to the rest of our class
9. Repeat
Reflection
This project had a lot of free range on it so it was really fun to do. It was a really good experience to learn about how other people aren't as lucky as us and can't get the clean water that we can get so easily. In the past I didn't know that research was so important until now. Until we used about two days of just researching to try and get as much information as we could. Our project overall went pretty well, we got a lot of good information and made a good prototype. Unfortunately we got out work time cut short by two days due to two school rain days so our end product wasn't as good as we would have liked it to be. We couldn't make a water filter that could filter everything out because a we didn't have access to any UV light, but we made the best we could with what materials we had. Some things I learned about myself were that I should be more appreciative about how lucky we are to have clean water right at our finger tips. Also I didn't think that unclean water was a very big world problem until we were researching and found how many people get really sick and die from lack of clean water. Some things I could have done better were staying on track a little more and instead of when we were done with one part just sitting there when we could have gone ahead and done something else. Also I could have improved on gathering more data from our prototype, we mostly tested it to see how the filter worked, but I should have been paying closer attention to the numbers and wrote them down so we could have had more data to back up our prototype. Some pits of our project was the lack of materials we had, we could have made a so much better water filter if we could have been able to filter out all the micro organisms. Also we didn't do a very good job of keeping track of the statistics, we weren't keeping track of how well each of the filtering methods were working. Since we weren't keeping good track of our tests we couldn't make the most efficient water filter as I think we could have. On the other hand there were a lot of good parts about this project. Our group worked really well together, while two of us would be testing the water filter, the other two would be working on the presentation. So no one was dominating the work and no one was left out or not doing their fare share. Also thanks to the weather it was raining outside, so we had lots of dirty muddy test water that we could use to run through our filter. To conclude this project was a very rewarding project to think that we were doing something to take a step in the right direction of fixing a world problem.
This project had a lot of free range on it so it was really fun to do. It was a really good experience to learn about how other people aren't as lucky as us and can't get the clean water that we can get so easily. In the past I didn't know that research was so important until now. Until we used about two days of just researching to try and get as much information as we could. Our project overall went pretty well, we got a lot of good information and made a good prototype. Unfortunately we got out work time cut short by two days due to two school rain days so our end product wasn't as good as we would have liked it to be. We couldn't make a water filter that could filter everything out because a we didn't have access to any UV light, but we made the best we could with what materials we had. Some things I learned about myself were that I should be more appreciative about how lucky we are to have clean water right at our finger tips. Also I didn't think that unclean water was a very big world problem until we were researching and found how many people get really sick and die from lack of clean water. Some things I could have done better were staying on track a little more and instead of when we were done with one part just sitting there when we could have gone ahead and done something else. Also I could have improved on gathering more data from our prototype, we mostly tested it to see how the filter worked, but I should have been paying closer attention to the numbers and wrote them down so we could have had more data to back up our prototype. Some pits of our project was the lack of materials we had, we could have made a so much better water filter if we could have been able to filter out all the micro organisms. Also we didn't do a very good job of keeping track of the statistics, we weren't keeping track of how well each of the filtering methods were working. Since we weren't keeping good track of our tests we couldn't make the most efficient water filter as I think we could have. On the other hand there were a lot of good parts about this project. Our group worked really well together, while two of us would be testing the water filter, the other two would be working on the presentation. So no one was dominating the work and no one was left out or not doing their fare share. Also thanks to the weather it was raining outside, so we had lots of dirty muddy test water that we could use to run through our filter. To conclude this project was a very rewarding project to think that we were doing something to take a step in the right direction of fixing a world problem.