Wat-er We Drinking Project

What We Did

For our water project, we were tasked with finding a way to improve global access to water, either for drinking or other uses. As the drought affects us personally, we decided to find a way to access water in areas with low precipitation. Our solution was to build a device to capture fog from the air. While we don't live in a particularly rainy area, we do live in an area where fog is common. Our design was based on actual collection systems used in coastal areas with a lot of fog. Our model used cheese cloth and a screen door to collect water as fog floated through, and a bucket underneath to contain the water. This allowed us to capture water that was present in the atmosphere, and repurpose it for other tasks.

Concepts We Used

Adhesion: Adhesion is the property of water allowing it to stick to surfaces. Adhesion occurs due to the polar charge of water being attracted to most materials regardless of charge. Adhesion was the main property our project relied on. Water would not have held to our netting if adhesion didn't occur.

Cohesion: Cohesion is the property of water allowing it to stick to other water molecules. This is because the hydrogen of one water molecule will be attracted to the oxygen molecule of another, forming a hydrogen bond. This property was also important in our project, as it allowed the water to become heavy enough to form droplets and fall into the bucket. The water would have just clung to the screen instead of rolling into the bucket if not for cohesion.

Surface tension: Surface tension is the property of water protecting it from being affected by external forces. This property was not expressly used in our project, but it is an important property nonetheless.

Capillary effect: The capillary effect allows water to move along a surface and against gravity. This happens due to hydrophilic molecules attracting water against other forces. We didn't need to use this effect because we wanted the water to fall directly down into a bucket.

Polarity: Hydrogen is positively charged, and oxygen is negatively charged. This is why water forms in the first place. Hydrogen bonds form between multiple water molecules because the lightly positive hydrogen in one molecule is attracted to the lightly negative oxygen in another.

Testing properties of water: We ran multiple tests on our water to determine how much of specific materials (such as iron, copper, chlorine) were present in the water, as well as testing the hardness and pH of our water. We got very good scores on almost everything, as well as a 7 for the pH test, indicating that it is fully drinkable. The only area we had some issues in was the hardness value. It was quite high, meaning that it may technically be drinkable, just not quite as good.

Types of Bonding: There are three main types of bonding, ionic, polar covalent, and non-polar covalent. Water is an example of polar bonding, because they share electrons but not equally. Water can also dissolve both polar and ionic substances, but not non-polar, as there is nothing for the water to attract in non-polar compounds.

Reflection

What I did well: During this project, there are two categories that I improved in. I showed strength in both critical thinking and communication. I showed good critical thinking abilities when building the physical prototype. I, with help from my group mates, was able to choose materials that would work well, secure everything in a way that worked for a short term prototype, and make something that got reasonably good results on the first try. Our prototype, while not great for real use, served its purpose and illustrated our idea well. I showed strength in communication through our slide presentation. While I can improve in this regard, I think I got my points across in an engaging and clear way. I believe our slideshow included all important information pertaining to our project, and the viewers came away with a clear idea of what we did.

What I can improve on: There are two things I can improve on a lot. The first one is being a conscientious learner, and the second is collaboration. I had a hard time finding interest in this project, so that certainly influenced my attitude going in, but I recognize that that is not a reasonable excuse, and I should have spent more time focusing on time management and coming up with ideas. Our group spent multiple project work days doing literally nothing to further the project, and I was definitely part of that. I believe we all had the opinion that it would all work itself out, which it did, but is still not a great outlook. I should have also played a more active role in coming up with ideas. I had a few very basic ideas, but nothing great. I largely waited for my group to come up with something good instead of taking an active role in doing research and finding something that would work.