Can the Watercycle Help Africa Survive? (Washington State University)

The National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance combined with the support of the Lemelson Foundation provides $1.5 million to student and faculty programs and ventures annually, such as for today's featured invention from the Advanced E-Team located at Washington State University. These programs are put to great use as they allow youth to participate in some of the kinds of thinking that will eventually change the world...one small invention at a time.

Today we are looking at a project headed by WSU clinical professor (PhD in bioengineering), Howard P. Davis. Howard and his team of students (E-Team) have been in the process of developing treadle pumps for Malawi. In case you are unfamiliar with the term treadle pump, it is a foot or arm operated water pump that has the ability to irrigate small crops and land in areas with a relatively high water table. The idea behind such a simple manual designed pump, is that it is inexpensive to purchase and maintain, as well as being fundamentally very reliable structurally, since there are so few parts to break. The team decided to build the Watercycle, for several reasons. Besides being inexpensive, and simple to maintain and build, they wanted to find a solution that would offer the operators the most easy and enjoyable motion, while also offering a good amount of water flow and could be easily transferred to various areas.

They Watercycle uses a double diaphragm pump that is powered by the push-pull motion of the upper body and the standard pedaling motion of a bicycle. The bicycle is stationary during the pumping process, allowing the user to get the most stability while placed upon platform. Sometimes two people use these pumps, which allows for greater socializing, less effort, and of course more enjoyment.

These pumps can also be easily taken to any designated areas by simply folding it up and attaching it to the back or front of the bicycle where it can be pedaled to the next destination. Before these designs, the people of Malawi had to carry water in buckets by hand, which was not only terribly time consuming, but also had negative effects on their physical health. In addition to irrigation, the pumps can be sourced for parts by local Malawi merchants, which offers additional income to the poor families in Malawi.

To gain further insight on this idea that has become a non-profit organization, we spoke with Howard more about this project:

Planet Green: Tell us more about the E-Team's Watercycle treadle pump.
Howard: "Well, the treadle pump is one solution to the water problem. This project has been going on for four years. It is unique in that it contains three populations of students. We have business, science, and engineering students, and they are all given different projects. They are supposed to build a business case while they are finding a technological solution. It is kind of an entrepreneurial approach."

"One of the projects has been the Malawi human powered irrigation project. There have been three groups tackling that and building off of each others work. This last group has formed a non-profit to go ahead and realize the work in delivering the pumps to Malawi. I am the P.I. on a grant from NCIIA and my job is basically to make sure that they are actually executing their business plan."

"Our technology is a double diaphragm pump, very much like what you'd see in a sailing yacht for a bilge pump. It has a couple of nice features. One, is that it is very tolerant to particulate in the water, two, it is self priming, and three, it takes a fairly low effort compared to a lot of other treadle pumps out there. We have two configurations. One, is in a push-pull, kind of like rowing a boat. The second one we are still working on, is a bicycle. In Malawi, almost all goods are transported by bicycle which is amazing. You will see two or three people on a bicycle or 500 pounds of wood stacked on a bicycle. You have to see it to believe it."

Tell us more about Malawi.
"Malawi is on the western side of Lake Malawi which is called the calendar lake. It is 356 miles long and 52 miles wide. They are the third poorest nation in the world and they have both a dry season and a wet season. Only about 1 percent of their land is irrigated, even though they have this huge water resource they could be exploiting. As a result they are only able to grow crops for half of the year. There is a huge opportunity to have an immense impact over the quality of their life."

"Washington State University has has a presence in Malawi for about 20 years. One of the projects they have sponsored is a group called Total Land Care, whose mission is to collect the best agricultural practices and deliver it to the Malawi people in a culturally relative way. The social structure there is tribal, so for anything to be adopted you have to have contacts through their local chiefs. So, a lot of the work we have been doing is trying to find and deliver that technology to the culture, which is a pretty big challenge."

What sorts of crops does Malawi farm?
"A lot of what they grow is cabbages, your basic truck crops. They also grow tobacco for a cash crop. They could grow just about anything during the rainy season. Almost all their GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is from agriculture."

How does the treadle pump work exactly?
"The current configuration is that it works with two people and there is a couple reasons we did this. One, is this is a really long and boring process. They will be pumping all day to irrigate their fields. If there are two people, it is a lot more socially acceptable. Two, in many cases it is women and children doing the irrigation part, so it also gives you a little more horsepower. How it works, is you basically stand facing each other and like a saw you push the handle towards your partner and they push it back to you."

What was one of the greatest challenges in your design?
"It had to be bullet-proof, since there are not a lot of facilities for repair. There are not a lot of tools, so something that is robust and works all the time trumps something that might be more efficient, but is more finicky. They are also land-locked. They have no access to the ocean, so there are some challenges to getting materials to Malawi."

Thank you Howard for sharing your project with us. When it comes to invention and technology, it is a good reminder for us that not always are the most technologically advanced solutions the most viable. A good solution is a good solution, no matter how simple it may seem. We invented the wheel centuries ago, but we are still miraculously finding new ways to use it for the benefit of both the planet and those living upon it.

So what can we at Planet Green take from this story? Number one is of course the importance of water conservation. Many of us developed countries take for granted the ability to flip a switch and turn the sprinklers on our prized tomato plants. Water is a privilege and not a right in many undeveloped nations. Second, this story should remind us of our roots.

One of the easiest ways to reduce your carbon footprint in your kitchen is to buy less packaged goods and grow more of your own food. A garden is actually not as hard as you might think to set-up and maintain. Even if you live in a condominium or apartment in the city, you can still have what is called a container garden, which is basically an idea that someone once came up with to garden out of an oversize flower pot. Once again, we see that some of the best inventions come from simple and easily executed ideas that we can all take advantage of.

More Green Inventors:
You're Never Too Young to be a Green Inventor
Get to Know the Lemelson Foundation
Bringing Hydraulic Hybrid Retrofits to Developing Nations (Colorado State University)
Inventing New Uses for Coconut Shells (Baylor University)
Get to Know: SMIT, Solar Power Ivy
Deciphering Good Products from Bad is a Phone Text Away with GoodGuide (Berkeley University)

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