12/1/2019
The Greenon High School InvenTeam is working on a netting system that will decrease the amount of man-made debris that enters waterways through storm drains. Waterways in residential areas are often polluted because of trash that is washed down in sewers that flow directly into nearby streams. Our team wants to create a storm drain netting system that will allow the net to collect debris of various sizes without disturbing the storm drain from functioning. Taking into account that many storm drains may not be checked on a regular basis, our netting system will possess a pressure transducer that will measure the weight of the debris in the net and send a signal to indicate when the net needs to be emptied. This will allow our net to reduce the debris in our waterways while still allowing the storm sewer system to function normally. We also intend for the entire system to be battery powered, making this drain netting system portable.
To start our project our team has been divided into two different teams; the teams were split based off of the primary components of our project, the Net solution team, and the Tension sensing solution team. The Tension sensing solution team is currently working on reviewing circuits and learning how to program, and the Net solution team is reviewing the engineering design process and what materials and design they are going to use. We have also visited the sites where we will be placing our net once it is complete.
Recently, our team has been dividing tasks, assigning roles, and figuring out how to divide and document our time and efforts. We have spent much of our time learning about what it actually is that we signed up for. Over the last month we have also become aware that there are many people who are interested in what our team is doing. Entities we have already partnered with include; Seepex, a local branch of a company that specializes in pumps, wells, and machinery that moves fluid. Recently, our team took a field trip to Seepex to check out what they do and the types of machines they work with. During our trip to Seepex, we were greeted by many people who were interested in helping us. We took a small tour of Seepex and discussed our goal with the people at Seepex. We hope that we will be able to partner with multiple local environmental agencies and local industry. We would like to use these entities to increase our knowledge of the local storm drain system. These partnerships could also potentially help us in the future when we want to implement, maintain, and gather data on a full scale storm drain with our net device in the field. Our team also hopes this local support will help with funding transportation expenses and/or offer to share their expertise.
As of right now our goal is to start working on our initial small scale prototype designs for both the tension sensing device and the net solution as soon as we can. We will also continue to research the problem of man-made debris in waterways and what solutions are being produced to combat this increasingly important issue. Another student organization at Greenon, Varsity G, has also already committed to a local waterway clean up activity and we hope other groups at Greenon will become involved in removing debris from our waterways; hopefully, it will become a school wide initiative.
