That's right. On the Jacobs School Facebook fan page, Jacobs School undergrad Peter Cottle gave us some insights on the ECOLIFE engineering project aimed at transitioning people to sustainable fish and vegetable production and away from bushmeat in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable Forest and elsewhere.
Below is what Peter explained on Facebook. The original story is on the Jacobs School news site.
Peter: "Working on this project was a great experience from start to finish. ECOLIFE gave us an awesome overview of the project and the overall goal for their aquaponics systems in Africa. From there, our group researched out to the vibrant ...online aquaponics community and performed a lot of preliminary research. With that theoretical knowledge base, some tinkering, and a little creativity, we finally had a breakthrough and made a siphon that will hopefully change the world!"
For a mechanical engineering team project, the engineering students designed a tipper/siphon that will be used in an ECOLIFE aquaponics system in Uganda.
Peter: "The typical bell siphon is very dependent on the incoming flow-rate in order to function. Because reliable pumps and electricity are unavailable in Africa, ECOLIFE wanted us to come up with a siphon that was flow-rate independent. By adding the tipper, the siphon receives pulses of water rather than constant streams. This improves performance at a minimal cost! "
