Invention Coach:
Motivation:
The Need to Detect Water Contamination in Rural Areas
While volunteering for Engineers Without Borders, Robert Read learned of the critical need to evaluate water for fecal contamination in remote field locations that lacked laboratory-style equipment. Shortening the time to quantitatively measure fecal contamination would help provide clean water to the developing world, and might even save lives in disaster relief situations.
Story:
Collaboration and Project Testing
Based on work begun by Anjan Contractor and many volunteers from the Greater Austin Chapter of Engineers without Borders, Public Inventor Robert L. Read led a team of EWB volunteers in the construction of an open-source incubator that is fully battery powered. This project is published in the Journal of Humanitarian Engineering.
Field Testing and Decreasing Processing Time
That work allowed the project team to test water in the field. It was successful, but took 48 hours to process.
Currently, with the help of Shreya, a new volunteer, Public Invention has carried forward research to reduce this time as much as possible. The goal was to decrease the processing time within 8 hours (without EWB).
Related Open-Source Projects
If interested in learning more about our other projects, check the following pages for updates and volunteer opportunities: