Daikin Industries from Japan developed a hydrophobic coating. This is just the thing for D.R.I.P.S. — we want to be able to coat our atmospheric water collector so that every single drop of moisture gets delivered to the roots of plants.
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Daikin Industries from Japan developed a hydrophobic coating. This is just the thing for D.R.I.P.S. — we want to be able to coat our atmospheric water collector so that every single drop of moisture gets delivered to the roots of plants.
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So now we have three prototypes: two from India and one locally-produced. They are very different. But the latest version is what we are sending to EDF for the EDF Pavilion Exhibition at the London Summer Olympics Games. Check them out:
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Just read a post from DRIPtech — they want a product designer who can help them design “affordable irrigation technologies for small-plot farmers in developing countries”! Well, that’s us! Check out the post: Job Posting: Director of Product Design
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We just got our first glimpse of DRIPS from India — these were produced in India and are being shipped to us now. Can’t wait to see them in person!
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EDF has put up a video of the judging of the projects, the award presentation ceremony, the party, and some interviews of the teachers that shepherded their students through this competition. Here it is below and here’s a link to the EDF web site. Enjoy! We did. EDF DESIGN CHALLENGE The first edition finalists...
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We found this blog post by one of the judges for the EDF Sustainable Design Challenge: GreenMonk. The post not only gives a nice description of the competition, but it also links to our project! Thank you!
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It’s official: the D.R.I.P.S. project is one of the eight winners of the EDF Sustainable Design Challenge. We now have to work out more of the details of the project and test it out. We’ll putting up more updates as we go along on this blog. The final project will be featured in the...
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The more research we do, the more we post on this site, the more obvious is becomes that different areas of the world, different peoples are need the flexibility in the approach to developing dew collection systems for plan irrigation. Some places have a lot of fog and would benefit from using nets-based D.R.I.P.S....
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Here’s an illustration of how D.R.I.P.S. would be used to farm potatoes, using evapotranspiration—by collecting dew and delivering it to the plants’ root system. This is our low energy passive irrigation system in scarce water environment.
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We are doing a lot of research in these last few days. We came across a dew irrigation system that had a lot of similarity to our D.R.I.P.S. project. It is a system designed by an Israeli company Tal-Ya. Here are few photos of their product (notice the irrigation lines): At first it was...
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Okay, so how about a fan shaped metal structure? It would maximize the surface area—very important as dew collects on the surface—the larger the surface are, the more water can potentially be collected. It naturally funnels the water into the “drill” structure below. It can easily be constructed (even by us) from a perforated...
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We are trying to think out-the-box, or a cone, in our case. In a very interesting video, an engineering class proposed a dew harvester constructed from a metal mesh coated with a hydrophobic layer. This approach would increase the total surface area thereby increasing the average amount of dew that could be collected. Nick...
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Recently, we’ve been busy contemplating about our D.R.I.P.S. idea. We’ve even started putting together a prototype! (Although being in high school it’s a little more difficult.) We’ve considered various materials: clay, plastic, metal. We want to design something that the local population can easily produce themselves. We assume that cost of production is a...
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EDF Evaluation Question: “Please describe shortly below how your project contributes to change energy together for better living (sustainable behavior).” Answer: I think the question is asking us to evaluate our project, Deep Root Irrigation and Precipitation System, in terms of its impact on the communities where it will be deployed. We believe there...
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Raw Materials is part of the EDF Evaluation Matrix for our design. It deals with Proximity, Recycled Origin, Renewable & Plentiful, and Limited Quantity. Proximity EDF Evaluation Matrix doesn’t provide a definition for this item. The D.R.I.P.S. will be manufactured in the proximity of where they will be deployed. Recycled Origin “ISO 14021 defines recycled content as...
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