Google Slide that we made for our project:
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In this project, we were instructed to figure out a problem and fix it. My group, Ben Klinge, Josh Jossart, and I decided to focus on drought. Specifically, the California drought. After a few days of research, we decided to build a desalinator. A desalinator takes saltwater and turns it into freshwater. We chose to do this by using the Sun to evaporate saltwater in a glass bottle, or a cone shaped tube, and have the water vapor go through a plastic tube and into another reservoir tank wrapped in tinfoil, turning the water vapor into water. We decided to do this, because the water in saltwater will evaporate, but the salt and all the other nasty components will be left behind, since it cannot evaporate. This will leave a pool of fresh, 100% clean water.
Concepts
Engineering Design Cycle
1. Identify the need- My group chose drought, specifically the California drought.
2. Research the problem- We took 2 days researching and taking notes on the drought in California
3. Develop possible solutions- We thought of many ways we could help people in the drought
4. Select the most promising solution- After we came up with many ideas, we all settled on he solution we all thought was best
5. Construct a prototype- We made a design of a desalinator
6. Test and evaluate the prototype- We finished designing and filled our machine with saltwater and put it outside in the Sun to test it
7. Communicate the design- We would plan to create to create more.
8. Redesign- We did not totally redesign our machine, but we fixed parts of it and added improvements. One way we did this was by putting tinfoil around the reservoir tank to keep sunlight from reaching it.
9. Repeat- We did not use this step, but it is highly encouraged to do it and start all over again until the perfect design and prototype is reached, although my group did not have enough time to do so.
*No other concepts were used by my group for this project, as we did not use much physics.
1. Identify the need- My group chose drought, specifically the California drought.
2. Research the problem- We took 2 days researching and taking notes on the drought in California
3. Develop possible solutions- We thought of many ways we could help people in the drought
4. Select the most promising solution- After we came up with many ideas, we all settled on he solution we all thought was best
5. Construct a prototype- We made a design of a desalinator
6. Test and evaluate the prototype- We finished designing and filled our machine with saltwater and put it outside in the Sun to test it
7. Communicate the design- We would plan to create to create more.
8. Redesign- We did not totally redesign our machine, but we fixed parts of it and added improvements. One way we did this was by putting tinfoil around the reservoir tank to keep sunlight from reaching it.
9. Repeat- We did not use this step, but it is highly encouraged to do it and start all over again until the perfect design and prototype is reached, although my group did not have enough time to do so.
*No other concepts were used by my group for this project, as we did not use much physics.
Reflection
This project is my favorite project by far. We worked very well together and did not argue at all. I had a great time with this project, and we all got along very well. One thing I learned in this project is that I work better with people that I am comfortable with, instead of people I a, not. With people I know better, I tend to take more of a leadership role. My group could have stayed more on task, though. We messed and joked around a lot. We often found ourselves ff task and not getting work done. This shows that the whole project wasn't sugar and daisies. There were some very good moments, and some bad moments, which were our peaks and pits. Our design worked very well, for the most part. We checked it one day and the salt water did evaporate into freshwater, which is an example of a peak, but it didn't go all the way through the tube. The water vapor got stuck in the tube and turned into condensation in the tube, instead of the reservoir, which is an example of a pit.