Wow, I can't believe that the school year is almost over. We have done so much over the past six weeks. I can't believe how far we have got and how much we have learned. Even starting from a simple diagram our group has made it come to life in such a short amount of time. This project has been difficult and frustrating at times, but it helps me increase my teamwork skills. I am happy that we are trying to help people in need by doing this. Even if our filtration system does not work I know that our project will give some other people ideas on how to improve it. These are just some good things from this spring project.

On the other hand, this has been a tough week for us. We have had many problems with our filter. After getting the plastic on the frame on Tuesday, we poured the water in and came back the next day. What my group found was frustrating. Some of the water had evaporated, or at least we thought it did. Although, because we didn’t cover the bottom of the filter with plastic, we had at least three problems. First, the water that might have evaporated was falling through the bottom. And because the bottom wasn’t covered, the filter could not get humid enough inside so that the water would evaporate. Lastly, the black bucket that was in the filter had a crack in the bottom; therefore, the water was leaking out of it.

Thankfully, Mr.Verkaik had an extra bucket that was the same as ours. Again, we had troubles getting the bucket with the crack in it out of the filter. We had sized the frame just right so that the bucket would be caught at the sides of the frame. Also, since none of the water evaporated the day before, the only way to get the bucket out was to tip the bucket on its side so the water would spill too. After replacing the two buckets, we have to fix the problem of the open bottom. So we set the frame on its side and covered and stapled a sheet of plastic. Since we had such a difficult time getting the bucket out of the filter, I had come up with the idea of creating a flap in the plastic so we could get into the inside if we needed to. Although, my idea didn't work out so well because while we could get in, the humidity could also get out. That was basically the whole point of the filter, is that inside the filter it would get humid and the water would heat up and evaporate, but when the humidity gets out the water no longer can evaporate. Because of that, we tried to duct tape the pieces of plastic back together but sadly duct tape can't do everything. So we just put a new piece of plastic over the side. Hopefully, now we will get some inprovements by Monday. That is all we did this week and until then I say see you later!