Design it Clean
The following is a picture of the water filter designed by my group and I, designed for our region Kenya. Following is a description of the area we were assigned and then a description of our product including a estimated cost of the product. In the product description, it includes a summarization of the tests that we completed to test the water quality.
Area Description
Our Area is The Kajiado Central District is located in the southwest part in Kenya, located in the middle-eastern part of Africa bordering the Indian Ocean, Sudan, Uganda, Ethiopia, Lake Victoria, and Tanzania. The Climate in Kajiado is ranged around arid to semi-arid, with a some deserts and grassland. Recently Kenya has been experiencing severe droughts, do to deforestation and climate change, and you can imagine how hard to would be to find water, much less clean water. This is an everyday struggle to the 184,408 people living in Kajiado and the neighboring Mashuru District, more than 40 percent of Kenyans don't have access to clean drinking water, and 68 percent don't have adequate sanitation facilities. Plus, because most of the people are Maasai, semi-nomadic people, they travel with their livestock, without homes. This is where the problem arises. To support their livestock they need to share the water they have with them, and because the lack of sanitation from the Maasai and livestock, Some of their feces might flow into their water supply causing the water to become infected with Fecal Coliforms (E.Coli). E.Coli causes severe diarrhea and Typhoid fever, diarrhea is the second leading cause of death for children 5yrs and younger. Now, water tends to be far away in drought seasons so the women and girls have to walk several miles with heavy buckets to get the everyday need of water, this takes so long that girls are often not able to attend school. Though do to lack of lakes, rivers and streams women and girls often are forced to dig shallow holes in the ground to get water. Often the water is cloudy and full of particles, having a higher chance of ‘sickness’ in the water. There is not only a water problem but poverty is really high in Kenya and their livelihoods are on the backs of their livestock.
Product Description and Test results
3 bottles- $3.00
Small plastic container- $1.00
Canvas cloth -$5.00
Rag- $2.00
Window screen- 2.00
For our product, we are using a small container to be used as a ‘tray’ that will have the bottom cut out and a screen from a window will be attached to the bottom. This tray will have rocks in it, which will potentially trap microorganisms as well as the screen will trap any major pieces of animal feces, as this is the major issue in Kenya. This will then lead to the first small bottle, and at the end it will have a rag, one that you may find in the kitchen, this will trap the last of the dirt or animal feces that were in the water. This will then lead into the second bottle which will have the canvas cloth tied to the bottom of it. This will trap some of both the smaller and larger pieces of animal feces that made it past the window screen.This will ultimately lead to another bottle with the cap on the bottom, which will hold all of the water poured in. Anyways, we then continued to test our filter. The first test we did was the turbidity test, we poured dirty water into a graduated cylinder then lowered a disk into the water until we couldn't see it anymore. It was at 2 centimeters when the disk was no longer in sight. We then used our filter to filter the water and did the test. We could see the disk the entire time, all the way to the bottom. The second test that we completed was the ammonia that was in the water before and after. We were given the ammonia of the original water, which measured as a one on the chart. Then we put the contaminated water through our filter and tested it after and allowed it to sit until the water showed what the ammonia level it was at, at which we got .25 as listed on the chart. The last test we did was the microorganism test. The water was a little old so most of the microorganisms were dead. Yet what we did was take some “infected” water, look at it under the microscope and count all the microorganisms we saw. I counted 11. Then we filtered the water through our filter and took that water and looked at it under the microscope, I counted 0 microorganisms.
Small plastic container- $1.00
Canvas cloth -$5.00
Rag- $2.00
Window screen- 2.00
For our product, we are using a small container to be used as a ‘tray’ that will have the bottom cut out and a screen from a window will be attached to the bottom. This tray will have rocks in it, which will potentially trap microorganisms as well as the screen will trap any major pieces of animal feces, as this is the major issue in Kenya. This will then lead to the first small bottle, and at the end it will have a rag, one that you may find in the kitchen, this will trap the last of the dirt or animal feces that were in the water. This will then lead into the second bottle which will have the canvas cloth tied to the bottom of it. This will trap some of both the smaller and larger pieces of animal feces that made it past the window screen.This will ultimately lead to another bottle with the cap on the bottom, which will hold all of the water poured in. Anyways, we then continued to test our filter. The first test we did was the turbidity test, we poured dirty water into a graduated cylinder then lowered a disk into the water until we couldn't see it anymore. It was at 2 centimeters when the disk was no longer in sight. We then used our filter to filter the water and did the test. We could see the disk the entire time, all the way to the bottom. The second test that we completed was the ammonia that was in the water before and after. We were given the ammonia of the original water, which measured as a one on the chart. Then we put the contaminated water through our filter and tested it after and allowed it to sit until the water showed what the ammonia level it was at, at which we got .25 as listed on the chart. The last test we did was the microorganism test. The water was a little old so most of the microorganisms were dead. Yet what we did was take some “infected” water, look at it under the microscope and count all the microorganisms we saw. I counted 11. Then we filtered the water through our filter and took that water and looked at it under the microscope, I counted 0 microorganisms.
3D Design of Our Filter, Made in Sketchup