Project #2, Blog #4

We have completed completed our design and gathered our materials. We are a bit behind in design construction, but we have simultaneously started putting together our final presentation. We will meet and finish both tasks this Sunday at 2pm.

Project #2, Blog #3

Today, Project Panda discussed our project, which ironically is not about Pandas. It is about Liberia.

Topics for today included:
- Electricity needed to power a germicide lamp
- Math to determine the electricity needed to power a germicide lamp.
   > We would need about 300 pounds of water to power a germicide lamp using a turbine with a 3in radius to produce about 3 gallons/min. We have decide to use a different method of water purification.
- Alternative water purification options
   > Sedimentation is a common and inexpensive way to filter water that does not require any electricity.
- Alterations to project design
   > We will use a downspout filter similar to a Brita design and store any power created by the turbine in a battery to be used for emergency power.
- Prototype construction
   > A non-working prototype will most likely be created as a working prototype would be too expensive for our budget.
- Next meeting: Sunday, November, 14, 2010; order of business: Prototype material purchase and construction

Yamani doesn't like people named Jack.
Jonathan likes bacon.

Project #2, Blog #2: Materials

Today we met at 7pm to discuss the materials we will use to build our prototype. This discussion led to our discovering many holes in our design. We made a list of topics to research which we will come back to tomorrow in class. Meeting dismissed at 8:40pm.

Below is the Gantt Chart we updated for today.
Gantt Chart - November 3, 2010

Project Panda: Project #2, Blog #1

Final Design Proposal

Project Panda: Nkiru Agomuoh, Jonathan Applewhite, Yamani Miller, Matthew Jacobs, Kalada Abbey

Dr. Cannon

Background: 

Our objective is to choose a country with a significant problem and to come up with an engineering-based solution to said issue. The solution must be economic and use appropriate technologies for the region in which we are working. We chose to solve the palpable water problem in Liberia. Currently only about 25% of Liberia’s population has constant access to safe drinking water.

Below are our three proposals to solve this issue:

Design 1: Wind powered water desalination

Though Liberia may not have much palpable water, they are a coastal nation, meaning they do have an abundant water supply in the ocean. Our first design would use the wind to create power to use to desalinate ocean water into drinking water. We would do this by building a wind turbine to create the energy needed to desalinate the water through a vacuum distillation process. We would then pipe water from the ocean into the desalination facility.

Design 2: Water filter/Energy production

In Liberia, there is a lot of rainwater, but not much palpable water. In our second design, we would capture rainwater to filter into drinking water. The rainwater is captured in a rooftop cistern and is funneled through an initial filter to get rid of any large contaminations. It is then run through a turbine that is connected to a generator, through a gearbox, to create and store a secondary source of energy. Finally, the water will be directed into a containment chamber where it will be cleaned using ultraviolet purification. The germicide lamp used in this chamber will be powered using the energy produced by the generator.

Design 3: Water powered water desalination

Our third design is a combination of the first two. The basis of it is still vacuum distillation, but to power this water desalination process, we would use the power of the ocean current. To do this, a tower would be placed right off the coast. At the base of the tower would be several paddles that would be aligned against the current of the ocean.  As the paddles shift from the motion of the tide and current, the motion would be transferred to the turbines that would be built in the center of the offshore shower.

Design Matrix

1 <- Worst………..Best -> 3

Design Matrix Recap:

Starting with the most important, our criteria were Magnitude, Efficiency, Cost, Appropriateness, and Materials. The criteria “Magnitude” refers to how much drinkable water would be produced with the proposed design. We chose Efficiency as the next most important criteria because the design will most likely be utilized in a developing country and should be as simple as possible so that people of a different culture and language can operate it. Cost goes hand-in-hand with Efficiency, so we made it the next most important criteria. It is very important for the design to be cost effective, so that it can be purchased by people of little income or even given away. However, the more efficient a design is, the more cost effective it will probably be so we put efficiency first. By Appropriateness, we meant for the design to use appropriate technology for the area. For example, using rainwater to create electricity in Liberia is more appropriate than it would be in Egypt or Australia because it gets more rainfall. We brought this in 4^th because we felt that it was more a criteria of integrity than necessity. Materials is our last criteria because though the design should use local materials that the people are comfortable with, if the same design can be accomplished at a lower cost and higher efficiency with foreign materials, this criteria can be bypassed.

Points for Importance are multiplied by 5, Efficiency by 4, etc. We graded the designs from 1 to 3; 1 being the worst, 3 being the best. For Magnitude, we decided that the Water-Desalination design should get the highest grade. This is because it will most likely produce the most energy and therefore the most drinkable water. Rainwater Purification seemed like the most efficient design because it does not much space or many parts to work. This also gave it the highest score in Cost. However, it did receive the lowest score in “Magnitude” as it will most likely be used on a small scale, where the other designs will be used on a much larger scale. We also gave Rainwater Purification the highest Materials score because its simple parts can mostly be made out of a variety of materials.

Our conclusion shows that the Rainwater Purification design would be the best design. Even though Water-Desalination scored higher in the most important criteria and came in a close second, Rainwater Purification scored highest in every other criterion on the design matrix. Therefore, we will proceed with the Rainwater Purification design.

Expected Cost:  

Here is a brief itemized list of the expected costs of a prototype vs. the actual product if it were to be built.

Prototype Price:

Electric Motor                    $30

PVC pipe                              $20

Tarp                                      $12

Battery                                 used

Germicide Lamp                $10

Total                                    $72

Actual Price:

Electric Motor                    $150      

Copper Piping                     $40

Rain Cistern                        $90

Battery                                $120

Downspout Filter               $54

Total                                      $4

    Gantt Chart - Thursday, October 28, 2010

Project Panda Blog #1

Preliminary Design Proposal

Project Panda: Nkiru Agomuoh, Jonathan Applewhite, Yamani Miller, Matthew Jacobs, Kalada Abbey

Dr. Cannon

Background:  The purpose of the assignment is to design and build a catapult that will throw a ping-pong ball and hit a bull’s-eye eight feet away using an energy source of only springs, rubber bands, and/or gravity. The target bull’s-eye is nine inches above the ground. Midway between the catapult and target will be an eighteen inch high obstruction. The ping-pong ball is to be catapulted over the obstruction and hit the bull’s-eye. The connections of the catapult can be secured with glue, screws, string or rope. Use of any metal is to be limited to connections or springs. The combined cost of the materials cannot exceed $25. Project success will be based primarily on the accuracy and safety of the device and secondarily on the catapult’s weight and aesthetics.

Design 1: Counterbalance

The ping-pong ball is placed in a cup on one end of a lever and a weight is attached to the other end. To launch, the end with the ping-pong ball is lowered manually and then released. Gravity pulls the weight on the other end down, bringing the opposite end up and launches the ping-pong ball.

Design 2: Tension

The ping-pong ball is placed in a cup on one end of the launch arm. The other end of the arm is stuck between a series string wound together and secured, at both ends, around winding dowels. To launch, the dowels are wound, creating tension in the string, which holds the launching arm in an upright position. When arm is then pulled back and released, it snaps back in to the upright position, launching the ping-pong ball.

   

Design 3: Rubber Band

The ping-pong is placed in a cup on one end of the launch arm. The other end is secured to middle of the base. A rubber band is secured to the base opposite the ping-pong. The rubber band is stretched up over a raised medium and back down to attach to the launch arm while in tension. To launch, the launch arm is released and the pulled up towards the medium by the rubber band. The arm is stopped by the medium, while the ping-pong ball continues forward.

Design 4: Rubber Band 2

This design is similar to design 3, except the rubber band is attached to the medium, so then tension is built over a shorter distance.

Design Matrix

1 <- Worst………..Best -> 4

	Accuracy (x5)	Safety (x4)	Consistency (x3)	Durability (x2)	Cost	Overall
Counterbalance	3 (15)	4 (16)	1 (3)	4 (8)	1	43
Tension	4 (20)	3 (12)	4 (12)	3 (6)	2	52
Rubber Band	1 (5)	1 (4)	2 (6)	3 (6)	3	24
Rubber Band 2	2 (10)	2 (8)	3 (9)	3 (6)	4	37

Design Matrix Recap: Starting with the most important, our criteria were accuracy, safety, consistency, durability, and cost. Points for accuracy are multiplied by 5, safety by 4, etc. We graded the designs from 1 to 4; 1 being the worst, 4 being the best. Our conclusion was that the tension design would be the best design because though it didn’t score very high in cost, it scored high in all the other (more important) criteria and received the highest overall score.

Expected Cost: The expected cost for this project is a rough estimate derived from the prices from Home Depot. Home Depot is the place we plan to buy our prospective materials for this project; the list is outlined below:

Wood …………..… $8

Twine ………..…… $4

Screws …………… $6

Sandpaper ……....... $4

Tax………………... $2

Total ………….… $24