Water Works

FSM: Year One

As a first-year engineering team, we competed in one competition. We won the Judges’ Choice award at the regional Tech Challenge, which came with a $200 prize. We also received a $400 grant from The Gifted in Fremont and gave a presentation at their meeting.

Tech Challenge 2008

We formed the team in February 2008 (our sophomore year) for Tech Challenge. At that point, we were a team of four: David, Eric, Catherine, and me, Rebecca, mainly picked because we had competed in Tech Challenge a few years before. The competition was in late April, so we had a little less than three months to build an effective water wheel. Our first try was a complete failure:

It had high rpm but low torque, so it couldn’t even power our pump let alone push any water through it. That was when we began to think bigger. With little time, we went really huge with a 4′ diameter water wheel . It took a day to assemble:

The pump system took longer. If we had the means to do it, our original pump design would have pumped about four times the amount we did on competition day. But making a water-tight pump is tricky business, and we just didn’t have the materials and money available to do it:

Abandoned – too hard to patch.

Abandoned – did not function.

Final design.

The placement of our pumps also changed; it became much more simple in design. Rather than a lever arm pushing the pump, the water wheel would instead do the trick. It was a major breakthrough in design:

In the end, we went with manufactured pumps. We had to go with a cheaper end model, but ended up buying four instead of just the two we were planning on – the quality of the pumps was extremely varied, and we needed smooth pumps for our device. We could have strapped on more pumps; our water wheel would have been able to handle many more. But with a week to go to competition day and our device finally running smoothly, we decided to let it be. And here’s our finished device!:

And finally – competition day:

Talking with the judges.

Setting up the device. The cameras were for recording the efficiency of the pumps.

Randomly dancing, allowing our device to run its course

After we finished running our device, the judges congratulated us on our work and we were free to wander around the Tech Museum or watch the other teams’ devices until the Awards Ceremony. We sat down nervously, unsure of what was going to happen. We cheered and clapped for the other teams, and wished that we had been able to see all of them work. Astonishingly, we found out that there was another team from Mission San Jose High School, who won the Most Eco-Friendly Device award.

We were thrilled when the MC announced that we had won the Judges’ Choice Award. That meant a cash award of 50 dollars each and a free year long membership to the Tech Museum.

Winning the Judges’ Choice Award.

Our team with Mr. Brucker, our advisor.