Our project

The central idea of ​​the project is to make better use of the water coming from the beaches. This is accomplished by reducing the salinity and dirtiness, and by exchanging a non-potable water container brought by the members of the community for a filtered water container that they can use, for example, to irrigate orchards and gardens, as well as other activities, thus taking care of the potable water reserves that we have.

The device is based on a recycled water container, containing non-potable water, and a container that acts as a filter, also containing easily accessible materials such as stones, sand and cotton.

To pump the non-potable water to the next container, a 3V pump is used with a relay connected to a first microbit board, which at the beginning worked by being turned on manually with the buttons on the board. In the meetings with the tutors of the Olympics, they suggested that we innovate by trying to automate the processes, so we added another micro:bit board that measures the water level in the non-potable water container and, through radio signals, tells the micro:bit board of the water pump when to turn on and when to turn off according to the water levels, also emitting an audible alert for the user.

The filter is in the second container, containing a layer of coarse gravel, fine gravel, fine sand and cotton. We use a 500 mL Bohemian glass to collect the filtered water. In this container there is a third micro:bit board that measures the conductivity of the sample, where we notice that the values ​​clearly drop, which we infer as a loss of salinity and other ions that were in solution before being filtered. With the idea of ​​automating and innovating, we added a fourth micro:bit board that works with Teachable Machine and a webcam, trained to warn with an audible alert when the Bohemia glass is at the limit of its content and thus avoid spills of filtered water.

Our inspiration

Given the concern over the drought experienced last year, and based on the question that arose in class about the idea of ​​purifying non-potable water to give it a better use, such as irrigation (the high school has a small garden that uses water from OSE) or hand washing, and other non-consumption uses in the high school, the idea was to use this water to have a more controlled consumption of potable water and a better function for non-potable water.