Davenport West InvenTeam December Mid-Month Update
Major events for the Davenport West InvenTeam so far in December!
On Tuesday, December 4th, KWQC News came into the Davenport West InvenTeam's facilities to help spread the word about the Kenya Water Project. Educator Supervisor Jason Franzenburg, Design Lead Nicholas Nahnybida, and Technical Lead Danny Cao were interviewed for the piece. The video gives a short description on the project and flexiblity of the team structure. Link
On Wednesday, December 5th, Quad City Times reporter Alma Gaul came in to gather information for a piece on the Davenport West InvenTeam. She observed the team during their morning meeting and sat in on a meeting with the Technical Team. She interviewed Educator Supervisor Jason Franzenburg, Client Joshua Ngao, and Lemelson-MIT Program Advisor Anthony Perry. The article came out on December 7th in the Quad City Times paper and website. Link
On Thursday, December 6th, the Technical Team had a meeting with Anthony Perry over the context of the project. They had to describe the multifacetedness of the problems at hand, from treating the water for E-Coli and other coliforms with chlorine, to having to test each individual watersource's characteristics to figure out how to treat it, to creating a flowrate that could satisfy the needs of 20,000 people who do not have the time to wait. They also discussed the timeline and scope of the project, because they are planning on continuing the project for next five years and expanding the filtertypes and water distribution methods. Also, the team discussed how they plan to implement the solution in Muamba, Kenya through the use of a choose-your-own-stages filter instruction manual. Overall, the meeting was very enlightening and has positively impacted the team's vision for the next few months.
On Tuesday, December 11, two representitives of the Techical Team, Testing Leads Dalton Carstens and Brandon Seamer, went with Educator Supervisor Jason Franzenburg to Iowa-American Water. They overviewed various testing procedures with Joshua Lighton, MSc, the Supervisor of Water Quality and Environmental Compliance. Specifically, they focused on ultra-violet and chlorine methods of treating water. Mr. Lighton believes that these two methods will be the best possible methods of treating water in our situtation. The following day, the three who went shared their experiences and knowledge with the rest of the team.
Also on Wednesday, December 12, Davenport Community Schools District Comunictaions/Media Relations manager Dawn Saul came in to work with the Communications team. They discussed the importants of documentation through a digital portfolio, methods of communication, comunication plans, and methods of staying safe online while still sharing the Lemelson-MIT InvenTeam experience with the world.
Client, Joshua Ngao will be coming in for another client interview Monday, December 17. The team will be discussing the currently absent data that needs to collected in-field related to bacteria testing. Ngao will travel to Kenya in January.
