Spring 2009

This semester we have been tasked with turning the current Outreach team, which before this semester consisted of three engineering students, into a fully fledged Public Relations and Funding group. The team now consists of eight people from a variety of majors all over Cornell. These people are from different departments and have all come from different backgrounds. Some people are taking the class for three credits, some for one credit, and some for no credits. Initially it has been a challenge to balance people from all over campus, some that are taking the class for credit, and some that are not. This resulted in some people that are required to spend a specific amount of time on the project, some more than others, and some that are donating their time.

The current team organization design that has been developed through trial and error is an organized and efficient way of running and organizing a varied group like the Outreach team.

The team design starts by splitting the group into two working groups, the Funding Working Group, and the Public Relations Working Group. Each working group has a managing student that is accountable to a Outreach Team leader. The Outreach Team leader is accountable to the AguaClara Team leader. The Outreach Team leader is the link between Monroe, the AguaClara Team leader, and the rest of the Outreach Team. The Working Group managers are the link between the rest of the AguaClara Team and the majority of the Outreach Team. At the beginning of the week, the Outreach Team leader will meet with the Working Group managers and discuss the weekly goals. The Working Group managers then organize a face to face meeting with their groups once a week that consists of discussing the previous week's accomplishments and delegating the next weeks goals.

Face to face contact every week is a very important part of this team's success. A lot of the work will be done individually or in small groups with this team, but the leaders of the group, meeting at least once a week with the other members of the group once a week and talking face to face, working problems out, and clarifying tasks is the most effective way of being successful in such a diverse group.

Meeting minutes will be placed on the wiki once a week, individually, by each team member. Each team member will have to learn how to search and edit the wiki during the first couple of weeks on the team. Individual placement of minutes and other work for the team is how grading is determined, and accountability is measured.

At the end of the semester I worked on studying the outsourcing of the design and construction of our settlement systems.

Fall 2008

For the first half of this semester I started out by addressing the flow controller precipitation problem. The first step was to identify the problem. It was determined that the chemical precipitating out was calcium carbonate by familiarizing myself with material written about the problem in other water treatment plants and by talking to the Aguaclara engineers located in Honduras.
Second ideas about how to deal with the problem were brainstormed. Ideas that floated around were designing a calcium hypochlorite feeder that would attempt to settle the calcium carbonate out before it reached the flow controller, changing the pH of the solution so as to inhibit the precipitation at all, and or developing a procedure for operators that run the plants or chlorination systems to perform that would eliminate the precipitant before the solution is introduced to the system.
The idea of altering the pH by adding HCl was a beginning idea, but currently has been pushed to the side because of doubts that Monroe expressed about the feasibility of introducing another chemical to the system. Designing a settling system to add to the chlorine holding tanks was also pushed aside because of its potential expense and doubts pertaining to its effectiveness. I don't believe that a settling systems benefits would have been drastically, if at all greater, than a procedure for settling out the calcium carbonate performed by an operator. Having an operator settle out the calcium carbonate using tools and or devices already in use the facilities will be more cost effective.
Lastly, a new problem with chlorine tube connectors came to my attention. The new polypropylene fittings ordered for the chlorine tanks appear to be leaking. At first they appeared to be the same as the fittings that were used before, just made out of a different material. But when they were put to use it became clear that they must have a slightly different design because the chorine solution begins to leak out when it is added to the holding tank.
Currently, I have reproduced the problem here at Cornell with the same fittings used in Honduras. Next I am going to break the fittings apart and compare them. I will then determine if I can retrofit the current fittings with perhaps more o-rings or recommend that we switch to a different fitting.