Sigh water

Sigh water is a practical machine that can bring water for every house. It will work thanks to the condensation of water molecules that are found in the air. 

Water defines our societies through its presence and absence. We, humans, need water to survive. We build our cities near waterways to assure our access to this vital resource, and even take it as the center of many myths and rituals. Water can save lives, so its presence and availability take such an important role. However, by 2021, 771 million lacked access to safe water all around the globe. As same, in 2022, 66% of Mexico area did not hold with enough water which affect approximately 21 million people. Focusing on Nuevo Leon, Mexico,  by July, its reservoir just maintained the 0.5% of 393 million m3 capacity. This is a great issue because without water people cannot do many of their daily tasks, and in the worse cases not even survive.

References:

A Reservoir Runs Dry. (n.d.). https://earthobservatory.nasa....

Carrión, M. (2020, November 2). ¿Cuánta agua hay en el planeta? EL ÁGORA DIARIO. https://www.elagoradiario.com/...

Sigh water aims to enable people all around the globe to have access to a potable source of water, even when their locality faces drought. In a nutshell, it is a machine that forces molecules of water in the air to condensate. The way in which we make this happens is by building a freezing system inside a polystyrene box that has glass panels inside of it. With this we are able to cool the air that gets inside of the box after passing through a fan. Which then leads to the condensation of water molecules that are part of the air. The technology we are using is Peltier cells as the box’s volume is not so big, and different materials that will help us to maintain a low temperature inside the box. For instance, we are using polystyrene, a calcium carbonate based coating and recycled cans. All of this will help us to achieve the construction of the machine at a low cost.  

This solution is seeking to help primarily Nuevo León’s citizens in times of drought, as that is the place we live in and where we first realized the great impact of this problematic. In our state the crisis has been partially solved, even though it is likely to come back. But there are other parts of the world that also suffer from this issue. For instance, according to data from the UNICEF web page, in 2019, globally 1 out of 3 people did not have access to potable water.   

It is crucial that everyone has access to water as it is fundamental for life to exist, and for humans to do their everyday activities. Therefore, we are working towards serving every person whose life’s quality could be improved thanks to this solution. So far it would only be available to people that have access to electricity. Nevertheless, this is likely to change as, once the prototype works as desired, we are planning on finding ways to power it with a mix of renewable energies.  

The implementation of this project will help people in different aspects of their lives. For example, their health will improve as they will have a source of purified water to drink of, and their hygiene as well. Also, some people have to walk long distances to obtain just a small portion of this liquid. Therefore, with our solution they will be able to spend that time on other activities, such as education, as they will have water at the palm of their hand. 

References:

1 de cada 3 personas en el mundo no tiene acceso a agua potable. (n.d.). https://www.unicef.org/es/comu... 

Más de 2000 millones de personas no tienen acceso a agua potable ni saneamiento básico. (2022, March 4). Noticias ONU. https://news.un.org/es/story/2... 

Even though it was for a short period of time, we were part of the population that suffered due to this issue. For a couple of months our access to water was limited which affected our everyday lives. Therefore, we are capable of understanding the impact that this problem has on people’s lives and why it has such relevance. Some ways in which this affected us is that our school was not able to accept students when there was not water, so our education time decreased. Also, there were times in which we would not have water for whole days straight, which made it very difficult for us to do everyday activities. For instance, we could not do chores as often as we should, nor shower.  

We are conscious that other people’s situation is even worse. Which means that what we suffered for a couple of months is their daily routine. Thus, we are committed to ensuring the success of this project so that we can help as much people as possible. We have worked in different science projects before, and participated in science camps. All of this has given us the ability to use our critical thinking in order to come up with new ideas that can help us solve the problems we might find in our way. So, even though we are still highschoolers, we believe that with hard work we are fully capable of bringing this idea to reality.

In the middle of 2022 Nuevo León faced a heavy drought which led the state to not have enough water resources to fulfill all of its citizen's needs. Therefore, the government first started limiting the amount of time that people would have access to water at their homes. We were part of the population affected by this, and as the situation got worse, we stopped having water services even for whole days. This really affected our everyday lives as we were unable to complete daily tasks such as washing the dishes and doing laundry. Even our school reduced the amount of time we could be there, which decreased the number of hours we could spend doing different projects and extracurricular activities. By facing all of this, even if it was just for a couple of months, we became more aware of how hard it was for people from our own country, and other parts of the world, to live every day like this. Now, we really understand how important water is for everyone, so we want to ensure that everyone has access to it. In order words, by having been through this experience we became more conscious about the relevance that finding solutions to this problem has. And, we know what type of solution could be more accessible and comfortable to use, at least, for people from our community.  

We are aware that the technology we use in the developing of this project is not new, nor discovered by us. However, the innovation of our project relies on the fact that more than being just a product we are planning to sell, we are also working on finding a way to give it a massive social impact. For instance, we are committed to figuring out how to maintain the cost of this not higher than a hundred dollars, so it is available to most people. As well, part of the profits we earn are going to be destined to producing machines we can donate, and doing research about how to improve the quality of our product.  

Added to that, one of our main goals is figuring out how to power our machine using only renewable energy. We know that this will be the most complicated step. But, after investigating we discovered that a school from our community has just implemented bicycle-like seats. This is great news for us due to the possibility of implementing the project in schools by making it work with the kinetic energy generated by this seat. All of this, in the long term, will probably lead us to also being able to implement a campaign, in parks and schools, in which people could exercise while generating water. This way we would not only be assuring people’s right to have access to potable water, but also encouraging to maintain themselves healthy.  

As our stage of development is an idea our main goal is to move on to the prototype stage. We are committed to improving people’s lives as soon as possible, so we have already raised the 100 dollars needed to start building the prototype. Currently we are buying the materials we need and organizing our school schedules so that we have enough time to built it. Once the machine is finished, we will analyze the results we get and work on improving the prototype. In order to do this, we will get in contact with the Environment secretary from our locality to see if they are interested in investing in our project. We will contact, as well, professionals who have experience on our field so that they give us feedback.  

In a nutshell, the way we see our next year is us keeping on doing research to ensure the best results. The first prototype is likely to not work as expected. So, just after we are comfortable with the results, we will start with the social aspect of the project, which involves donating the machines to the ones who need it and cannot afford it.   

For the construction of the prototype we are planning on using recyclable cans. And, due to that in Mexico there is a great amount of people in poverty that survive by collecting, separating and selling inorganic waste we will make a plan in which we are going to support these people by buying their cans at a higher price than usual, but not so high that it would make our product more expensive. This is a social phase that we can start planning now as we need of this material in all prototyping stages.  

Also, we will work on improving the energy sources of our machine by implementing renewable energy. This, by transforming the kinetic energy generated by a bicycle-like system. And as soon as this works, we are going to get in touch with the government to introduce our project to parks and even schools. In our community there is already a school who has seats that simulate the functioning of a bicycle, so another step we want to take is contact them to use their installations to power our project, and perhaps implement it in parks as well.  

Another thing we are eager to do is launching our product to the market. However, we are definitely not going to do this until we are 100% confident with the results it can give. Nevertheless, to be ready for when we do, we will start looking for courses that teach us all the steps we have to follow before start manufacturing and selling our machine at a big scale. For instance, we are interested in joining some of the programs for new entrepreneurs that the Watson Institute offers.  

Our solution is an application of different technologies already existent. We use fans to introduce the air into the machine, then we have a cooling system based on Peltier cells, which so far is going to be powered by electricity. However, for the future, we are planning on using a mix of renewable energies to power it. For instance, we will be using kinetic and solar energy obtained from everyday activities such as exercising outside.  Or is, we are going to obtain kinetic energy through the alteration of bicycles that are already installed in some schools and parks. In order to encourage people to use these systems we will make an app which is going to give them daily challenges on how to exercise using the machine. This app will also track the calories they burn, the time they exercise and other health data that can be helpful for the users. 

Also, we are going to use a filter made out of zeolite, calcium carbonate and activated carbon to purify the water. By this, we will not only ensure that they have water, but also the access to potable one.

We have not launched our solution yet. And as we have decided to focus on enriching our research and improving our prototype, we believe that we are only going to donate the machine to up to 20 people as we want to make sure that it works just great before giving it to people.

The principal barrier we have faced is not having enough resources to buy the materials we need to elaborate the prototypes. We have already achieved the 100 dollars needed to build the first one. But, in case it does not work as expected, which is likely, we will need more to improve it. Moreover, as we are high school students it is harder for us to evaluate the viability of our ideas. It does not mean that we cannot come to a proper conclusion, it is just that it takes us longer due to our lack of experience in engineering projects. Another thing we struggle with is that we do not have knowledge about how manufacture a product and get it into the market. Nevertheless, to eliminate all of these barriers we are looking for opportunities, such as internships or volunteering work, with which we can develop the abilities we need to improve our project.  

We do not partner with any organization so far. Regardless, we are currently finding a way to contact the government from our locality to see if they are interested on investing and helping us to develop our solution. 

All the people need water to live, so nobody must be prohibited from this. However, climate change and drought are doing that hundreds of millions of people stay without it. This product will provide the possibility to have safe water in their houses.  

With the aim that everyone can access our machine. We plan to sell the machine for 100 dollars and utilize half of the profit to donate extractors to high-needs families. We will employ the other part to improve the product. For example: search the way that the extractor works without electrical energy. 

Firstly, we will work on our prototype. We estimate it will cost 80 dollars. However, if we do it on a big scale, it will cost approx. 45 dollars. In this table, you can see the price per part of the machine:

Keeping that in mind, we are going to sell the product for 100 dollars. We plan to use the profit to search forms to improve the machine and work on social impact. It means that after some sales, we are going to donate a machine to a high-needs family.  

We want to give a solution that everyone can access to, in case of drougt.