STEM-In-Action Spring Scoop: Water Warriors
Our STEM-In-Action Grant winning teams have been hard at work for the past year advancing their eCYBERMISSION projects to make a difference in their communities. If you're new to the eCYBERMISSION blog, the Army Educational Outreach Program (AEOP) awards STEM-In-Action Grants of up to $5,000 to eCYBERMISSION teams that wish to further develop and implement their projects in their communities. We're checking back in with this year's STEM-In-Action Grant teams to get the inside scoop on their project process. Today we're catching up with Arizona's Water Warriors.
______________________________________
Unfortunately, by the time the deadline for last year’s contest rolled around, we still hadn’t been able to test the device as a unit, because we couldn’t get access to MOF-801. Being a team of teenagers, we don’t have access to the equipment in chemistry labs needed to synthesize this material. However, we got to the national finals. We didn’t win, but we were awarded a STEM-In-Action Grant to continue working on our design for the following year, and present at the National Judging & Educational Event in June 2024.
With this grant, we have been working on programming for a control/measurement system, understanding how to regulate fan speed, and refining our condensation system, while attempting to get access to MOF-801. We have made progress, but we have run into a few issues along the way.
Using the Grant, we have been able to continue refining our design, but we also have been able to learn valuable new things, like:
______________________________________
 |
| Team Water Warriors |
Hello again from the Water Warriors! We are a team of ninth graders from Scottsdale, Arizona, tackling the megadrought that’s been plaguing our home state for nearly 30 years, causing many communities to have reduced access, and in some cases, no access to water.
Our solution was to build a Star Wars-inspired moisture harvester. Even in the Sonoran Desert, extraordinary amounts of moisture are trapped in the air, and our project aimed to harvest it. We planned to use an extremely potent sponge-like desiccant (like a supercharged version of the ones you get in seaweed), called MOF-801, to absorb water out of the air, before pumping it out again, all running off solar power. Initial modeling showed that in an ideal scenario, our design could collect upwards of 7 liters of water a day. Further physical tests showed that our design was a viable option for cost-effective water production in drought-affected areas using green energy.
Our solution was to build a Star Wars-inspired moisture harvester. Even in the Sonoran Desert, extraordinary amounts of moisture are trapped in the air, and our project aimed to harvest it. We planned to use an extremely potent sponge-like desiccant (like a supercharged version of the ones you get in seaweed), called MOF-801, to absorb water out of the air, before pumping it out again, all running off solar power. Initial modeling showed that in an ideal scenario, our design could collect upwards of 7 liters of water a day. Further physical tests showed that our design was a viable option for cost-effective water production in drought-affected areas using green energy.
 |
| Engineering at work! |
Unfortunately, by the time the deadline for last year’s contest rolled around, we still hadn’t been able to test the device as a unit, because we couldn’t get access to MOF-801. Being a team of teenagers, we don’t have access to the equipment in chemistry labs needed to synthesize this material. However, we got to the national finals. We didn’t win, but we were awarded a STEM-In-Action Grant to continue working on our design for the following year, and present at the National Judging & Educational Event in June 2024.
With this grant, we have been working on programming for a control/measurement system, understanding how to regulate fan speed, and refining our condensation system, while attempting to get access to MOF-801. We have made progress, but we have run into a few issues along the way.
- We ran into issues using the Linux kernel’s new GPIO interface on the Raspberry Pi. We are working on troubleshooting this using event polling to determine where our requests are going awry.
- We initialized a GitHub repository to house all of our code and wrote programs for the control systems of our device and the control system of an experiment we will run.
- Not knowing if, or how much MOF-801 we would get has caused difficulties in designing the system, as the device must scale to fit the amount of material we receive.
- We have not been successful in getting much publicity so far, but we have been trying to line up a chance to speak to other students about our project. We are also hoping to get an editorial in the local newspaper.
 |
| Coding and troubleshooting for the project |
We are excited to announce that the Scottsdale Unified School District has partnered with the amazing professionals at the U.S. Army to give us an opportunity to learn how MOF-801 is made and get a small quantity for our experiments. We have learned a lot from research chemist Ann Kulisiewicz and are working on scaling down our design. We have a lot left to accomplish, but we are excited to get hands-on experience and revise our design.
Using the Grant, we have been able to continue refining our design, but we also have been able to learn valuable new things, like:
- Microcontroller programming
- Flowcharting
- How to use assorted tools like tap and die sets, grinders, and drill presses
- How MOF-801 is created and tested in the lab
- How humidity and temperature affect condensation
______________________________________
All we can say is, WOW! We are astounded by the level of maturity that Water Warriors have brought to their project. Identifying road blocks and problem solving to work through them is a vital skill that we know will serve them throughout their STEM careers. We wish them the best of luck continuing on their important project!
Thank you for joining us for our STEM-In-Action Spring Scoop series here on the blog! Our STEM-In-Action Grant teams will join us once more at the National Judging & Educational Event this summer, where they'll share more about their project progress.
eCYBERMISSION projects can begin now for the 2024-2025 eCYBERMISSION competition, and the eCYBERMISSION Mini-Grant application is now open for teachers.
Faith Benner
Senior Communications and Marketing Specialist
Comments
Post a Comment
We welcome your comments and expect that our conversation will follow the general rules of respectful civil discourse. This is a moderated blog, and we will only post comments from bloggers over 13 years of age that relate to eCYBERMISSION. We will review comments for posting within one business day. Bloggers are fully responsible for everything that they submit in their comments, and all posted comments are in the public domain. We do not discriminate against any views, but we reserve the right not to post comments.