Red Mountain Mid School (104)

The Red Mountain Mid School team (#104) is from Deming. This year they've submitted a project titled '''Don't Waste YOur Water! Embrace Your Water!'''.

Proposal
Agriculture is an important part of the nation’s economy. Our state is challenged with long droughts and water shortages. Local farmers and ranchers grow food and fiber for people and animals around the state and nation. Typically, 50-80% of household waste water is grey water from kitchen sinks, dishwashers, bathroom sinks, tubs and showers. The grey water can be transported by buckets, pumping water from the bathtub or kitchen sink by a garden hose, or adapting your plumbing system. The computer program will model the recycling of grey water by using the program Star Logo TNG. This grey water computer model will be validated against data gathered from a real world experimental model. The end goal is to use this program in a subroutine for a larger computer model.

Resources used: www.google.com www.epa.gov/waterinfrastructure/agriculture.html www.thenaturalhome.com www.greywaterrecycling.com

Team Members: Jarrod Harrington Cristian Sanchez

Sponsoring Teacher: Guyla Miller

Interim Report
Don’t Waste Your Water Embrace Your Water

Team 104

Agriculture is an important part of the nation’s economy. Our state is challenged with long droughts and water shortages. Local farmers and ranchers grow food and fiber for people and animals around the state and nation. Typically, 50-80% of household waste water is grey water from kitchen sinks, dishwashers, bathroom sinks, tubs and showers. The grey water can be transported by buckets, pumping water from the bathtub or kitchen sink by a garden hose, or adapting your plumbing system.

The computer program will model the recycling of grey water by using the program Star Logo TNG. This grey water computer model will be validated against data gathered from a real world experimental model. On greywater.com it stated “Grey water is wash water. That is, all waste water excepting toilet wastes and food wastes derived from garbage grinders.” The end goal is to use this program in a subroutine for a larger computer model. We intend to solve this problem computationally by showing that grey water to provide water for the plants you might have in a rural farm or garden. On Google we searched grey water’s affect on plants. On the naturalhome.com it stated “The beauty of this "pollutant problem" is the fact that mild household cleaning supplies are excellent sources of nutrition as liquid fertilizer for irrigation of trees, privacy hedge rows, and ornamental planter beds.” This shows that you do not have to use freshwater on your plants therefore it conserves freshwater for other uses. For the computer game we designed we added many parts that may not make sense but there is a reason for everything in the game. We added a school house to represent Red Mountain Middle School. We placed it there because our theme is small farms at the school using dishwater from dishes at lunch to water the plants. The pump house is what causes the water to come out of the ground pipes and water the plants. The water comes out of a big hill which causes it to flow down towards hundreds of plants. When the water touches a plant it causes the plant to grow and the water to deplete. The problem with this design is that the water was only directed to one plant which caused the plant to grow abnormally large and it depleted all the water so that none of the other plants could grow.

The computer program had to be redesigned by raising the sides of the terrain. We then placed four spouts on each corner and a spout in the middle of the terrain for the water to be equally distributed to all the plants. When water touches a plant, the plant then grows and the water molecules die out.

We expect to get results that turn out like an intermediate level computer game even though this is our first year doing this. We expect to have a smooth running, educational, enjoyable game.

Resources used: www.google.com www.epa.gov/waterinfrastructure/agriculture.html www.thenaturalhome.com www.greywaterrecycling.com www.greywater.com

Jesse B. Crawford
Hello, my name is Jesse B. Crawford and I'm an undergraduate studying Information Technology (minor in Technical Communications) at New Mexico Tech. I work for the Computer Science department on the New Mexico Experimental Project to Stimulate Competitive Research (NM-EPSCoR), which sponsors the Challenge. I've read your interim report and I have some comments.

Comparing your proposal to your interim report, I see that you've made good progress clarifying your proposal in to a more solid plan. I understand that you have already written the first version of your software and spent some time refining it, which is excellent.

I'd like to know if you have any mentors working with you. If you don't, I highly recommend forming a relationship with someone knowledgeable in the field. The Challenge might be able to help put you in touch with someone if you contact them. Also, thanks for listing the references you used in preparing your interim report.

I think your computer model is interesting, and I look forward to finding out more about it. My initial thought when reading the description of the model is that it sounds like it might be more about water in general, rather than more specifically about gray water. How are the details of gray water integrated in to the model? I like that you're interested in turning it in to a game, because that can be very powerful in getting other people interested in the advantages of gray water. For your final report, it would be good to spend some more time discussing exactly how the simulation works - of course, we're looking forward to seeing the simulation itself.

Remember that you have a face-to-face evaluation of your project coming up in February.

Thanks, and best of luck! Jesse B. Crawford (NMT) Talk/Contribs 09:49, 24 January 2012 (PST)