Creative Engineering (Semester I)
"Now, your next project will be to solve a world problem" says Mr. Williams,"let's go brainstorm!"
Okay, maybe he didn't say exactly that, but that was the basic implication of his assignment. We weren't required to put our designs into practice (unfortunately, our budget isn't exactly inexhaustible), only to come up with a design, present it, and devise some sort of action plan as to how we might distribute our product. After debating over which terrible bane of society we should eliminate (Overpopulation? Terrorism? 2+ Hours of homework?) we decided on a crippling social issue: lack of sanitary water worldwide.
Water shortage is an issue worldwide, but nowhere is it more prominent than in Northern Africa. Africa is not a dry place, although it may appear so on the surface, beneath the surface, there is an aquifer containing trillions of gallons of water. This water is far from accessible, however. Most of the water is at over a depth of 5,000ft. Due to this, conventional wells are ineffective.
Okay, maybe he didn't say exactly that, but that was the basic implication of his assignment. We weren't required to put our designs into practice (unfortunately, our budget isn't exactly inexhaustible), only to come up with a design, present it, and devise some sort of action plan as to how we might distribute our product. After debating over which terrible bane of society we should eliminate (Overpopulation? Terrorism? 2+ Hours of homework?) we decided on a crippling social issue: lack of sanitary water worldwide.
Water shortage is an issue worldwide, but nowhere is it more prominent than in Northern Africa. Africa is not a dry place, although it may appear so on the surface, beneath the surface, there is an aquifer containing trillions of gallons of water. This water is far from accessible, however. Most of the water is at over a depth of 5,000ft. Due to this, conventional wells are ineffective.
What we designed, however, is not a conventional well. In the space of a few weeks, we created the Hella Well (I didn't make the name, Scottie did). It incorporates drilling technologies developed for oil companies, consumer technologies on an industrial scale, and of course bits and pieces of our own to make it ridiculously simple, exceedingly effective and (somewhat) inexpensive. The drill head and telescoping pipe are similar to what you might find on an petroleum drilling rig, but with the addition of multiple filters along it's length. At the top is an industrial pump, it's shaft operated directly by a gasoline generator motor (anything works, from a motorbike powerplant to something as fancy as an industrial construction generator). After the pump, the water is filtered again and proceeds to either a spigot or a large holding tank. All available blueprints are in our power-point presentation (at the bottom of the page).
Of all the projects we have done so far, this one had by far the least amount of problems, which I found rather unnerving (what's an experiment when something doesn't go seriously wrong?). The only major issue was that nobody could operate Google sketch-up. This resulted in the beautiful graphic rendering you see in the pictures on this page (done of Microsoft Powerpoint -with only shapes). Of course underproductiveness was another small issue, but it was of little consequence, as we only had to make a presentation (a prototype would have been somewhat difficult to produce). Our project was completed before the deadline with ease.
This was our presentation.
All will be explained.