Davenport West InvenTeam March Update
The Davenport West InvenTeam has had a busy month with fundraising and organizing their plans for Eureka!Fest in June! Ontop of this, the team has been developing their upcoming children's education book for the children in Muamba, Kenya.
On March 1st, the team partnered with two of the Davenport West High's FIRST Robotics Teams to host a Trivia Night. The Davenport West Lemelson-MIT InvenTeam was able to earn a total of $2,250.00 of the total $4,500.00. This, and other fundraisers, will help lower student costs for attending the trip.
On March 5th, the team held a Chick-Fil-A spirit night in another effort to engage the community and generate funds. The team reached out to uncontacted members of their community, informed them about their project, and raised over $350.00.
The team has also been heavily focused on creating a children's book. The book will be used as a teaching tool to inform the younger members of Kenyan communities on the effects of unsafe drinking water. The communications team has also worked on creating project-based educational materials that will be alpha-tested by Davenport, IA students before being implemented in Kenyan schools.
The Davenport West InvenTeam has also been assembling foldscopes to send to Kenya in 2019 with the educational materials. These foldscopes are made of thin sheets of material that, when properly assembled, will allow users to see some of the bacteria in their drinking water. The team has reached out to many different platforms, including to Davenport West High's newspaper, to receive ideas and feedback on the concept.
The team has also been in touch with one of Davenport West High's biology teachers, Mr. Yoder. After speaking to him about the bacteria aspect of the clean water crisis, Mr. Yoder has become involved in the project. He has also lent some of his equipment to further the technical team's testing. He recently spoke to the team about furthering our lab testing and how to safely test the different bacteria levels. He asked us to refrain from putting any sort of bacteria into the test bed and filtration system as it could become unsafe and unregulatable quickly. He also informed the team on the nature of pathogenic and non-pathogenic coliforms. While the Davenport West Lemelson-MIT InvenTeam grows and tests non-pathogenic coliforms, if those coliforms were to contact regular pathogenic coliforms, they would share their DNA and become pathogenic. This could quickly become a serious situation and get people sick. Since his meeting, the students have updated their testing procedures.
