Water Collection - Design and Dissemination - Lecture Notes, Study notes of Development Economics

Download Water Collection - Design and Dissemination - Lecture Notes and more Study notes Development Economics in PDF only on Docsity! Team Updates 5 minutes per team. Source2Sink water collection Design Specs • Highest priority for human cooking/drinking – irrigation and livestock use secondary. Implementation • Rainwater Harvesting System continues to be the approach • Using existing roof structures for catchment – add gutters and storage systems. • Problem is rainy season lasts 6 months, need to collect and store water for the whole year. • Will be modifying some existing rainwater systems with gravity flow through gravel/slow sand filter purification. • Can divert some water before filtering for irrigation and livestock. Pedal Powered Washing Machine Progress • Radu and Jess went to Guatemala over spring break. • Sheer amount of time currently washing is striking – Full 8 hour day at least once per week, and a lot of that time spent hand-wringing water out of clothes. So, spin dry feature is quite important. • $60 cost per machine is maximum acceptable price. • Spin dry feasibility test was successful. • Prototype has been fabricated – horizontal tub, bicycle frame upside down with pedal mechanism and some bike gearing. Case Tracking Most work is going to defining details of how Power of Love and the caregivers will use the system. Deliverables will include: • Training: manual and accompanying materials for 4 “training tracks” or classes of users • Decision Support: paper with recommendation for how to incorporate clinical decision support in future release Docsity.com • Forms: final version of field worker forms and suggestions for server- side GUI • Information Exchange: design for failure analysis, how to mine information from the system, flow charts, maintenance recommendations. Micro-Hydro This week, the team is working on fabricating the hydrofoil steel blade. They’ve created a jig of steel pipes and wood, and made a blade. Next week, the team will make the other two blades and assemble the prototype for river testing. They will also be investigating use of old alternators from cars to generate the electricity. An EECS professor at MIT will be giving advice. Solar Water Disinfection The team will definitely refocus from Tibet to Zambia. This will change many of the specs, but exactly how is TBD. Most water sources are underground. Key question is how close a user can get to the water source (to minimize downstream contamination). Trying to balance thicker container = durability vs. thinner container = better UV penetration. An idea is to sew a fabric sleeve or pack, housing a relatively thin clear plastic container. The sleeve/pack would be locally fabricated. Trying to set up some UV tests, but cloudy days are interfering. Does an air bubble at the top of the container help or hinder the disinfection? Job Ebenezer: Technologies for the Poor Bio: Mr. Ebenezer received his M.S. in aeronautical engineering from Indian Institute of Science in 1967, and his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology in 1973. He has worked in many developing countries, and is currently a professor of engineering at Messiah College in Grantham, PA. His website, http://home.messiah.edu/~jebeneze/, shows technologies he designs and uses, including pedal power. See this site for photos and more background on his projects. His goal with converting bicycles into sources of power is to not impede their ability to transport. Pictures of his conversion mechanism are available at his website. These are very simple and practical designs which he has implemented and promoted in many areas of the developing world. He was originally motivated by George Washington Carver’s example that all subjects can be understood by all when expressed in the right language. He wrote bulletins “in the simplest language possible…expressed for the masses.” Docsity.com