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- Agua Para el Pueblo (as explained above)
- CARE international (in Honduras and Nicaragua)
- ACRA: Associazione di Cooperazione Rurale in Africa ed America Latina (an Italian NGO)
- Solidaridad Internacional (a Spanish NGO)
- COSUDE: Cooperación Suiza de Desarrollo (Swiss Development Cooperation)
- INFOM: Guatemalan Municipal Development Institute
- the Water Boards in charge of the five AguaClara facilities in Honduras and the association of water boards that they have formed
- the Sanjuan Foundation
AguaClara at Cornell University
AguaClara at Cornell is a center for research and design of sustainable engineered processes for surface water treatment. As opposed to point of use devices that provide water to individuals, AguaClara systems provide drinking water at the municipal scale. Cornell student research teams learn to use state of the art process control to automate parametric testing. The automated systems make it possible for teams to conduct sophisticated experiments without continuous presence. This in turn makes it possible for student teams to conduct experiments along with their other coursework. Experimental automation also makes it possible to explore a wider parameter space per unit time, allowing student teams to thoroughly test their ideas and to quickly adapt their hypotheses to respond to new results. The research teams generate knowledge that is used to improve AguaClara designs and create new treatment processes. An important incentive to students in AguaClara research teams is that they get to see the results of their work built and used to benefit people.
The AguaClara project teams at Cornell synthesizes their rapidly evolving knowledge into an online design tool that is used by implementation partners to design municipal drinking water treatment plants. This design tool is an AguaClara innovation that creates customized designs on demand using the power of computer automation. The AguaClara design team creates dimensionally correct, scalable algorithms to convert the physical constraints (as determined through research) into water treatment plant dimensions, flow velocities, and energy dissipation rates. These algorithms incorporate materials databases to ensure that the designs can be constructed using generic locally available materials.
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- An invitation to invent
- The design process (constraints, algorithms, dimensions)
- Physics, chemistry, and fluids of sustainable water treatment processes
- Analysis of lifetime energy costs
- Sociological aspects of team group dynamics and research including:
- Group think
- The importance of lifelong learning
- The vast opportunities for developing new knowledge
Educational Engineering-in-context trip
The annual 2 week trip to Honduras includes project site visits, a review of strengths and weaknesses of competing technologies and of the feed-back driven improvement of the AguaClara technologies, opportunities to share knowledge between the partner organizations and the Cornell AguaClara team, and an occasion for students to exhibit new technologies that they have developed. Students do NOT build AguaClara facilities. Students do demonstrate new technologies to our partner organizations to provide training and to gain feedback. The engineering-in-context trip is an essential program component. Students are empowered when they see the difference they are making in the lives of thousands of people. Students see the desperate need for low-cost, sustainable water treatment technologies. Students see that research, invention, and design at Cornell is part of a much larger program. Partner organizations learn the high level of research and invention that is the basis for the seemingly simple designs that are built in communities.
Innovation system
AguaClara is an innovation system that benefits from the ability to quickly turn new research generated knowledge into designs that are then built by implementation partners. Knowledge flows in both directions. The Cornell-AguaClara team benefits from feedback from implementation partners and plant operators. Proposed changes in design are vetted with implementation partners to improve the chances of success. Operational issues are also reported to the team at Cornell so that the team can make appropriate design changes. The feedback is invaluable and provides one of the significant advantages that the AguaClara innovation system has over traditional design approaches.
Undergraduate research
AguaClara at Cornell thrives on an integrated research and design team that incorporates Ph.D., M.S., M.Eng., and undergraduate students. Undergraduates are empowered to design experiments, build apparatus, program automated parametric testing, test hypotheses, analyze data, and draw conclusions. By working in small teams and by having state-of-the-art automation capabilities, we find that undergraduates are able to conduct meaningful research and generate knowledge. Students learn best by doing, and while conducting research they integrate what they are learning in all their coursework.
Graduate students supervise undergraduate researchers and learn invaluable research and team management skills that will serve them well as they move into faculty positions.
Students can take the same project course more than once
The project courses (CEE 2550/4550/505x) evolve every semester. The list of challenges for each project team changes, some projects end, and other projects begin. Students develop expertise, generate knowledge, and document what they have learned in the Program wiki. The list of challenges for the various project teams is extensive and guides the teams as they define their task list at the beginning of each semester. The entire AguaClara program evolves rapidly as new technologies are developed, new implementation partners join the network, and as feedback from the field provides new challenges.
Students from first year undergraduates to Ph.D. work together on a team
The best way to learn is by doing. Students with a range of expertise can work together and learn from each other on a project team. The senior members of the team provide training for the new members. This training process is a learning experience for both the senior members and the new members. Team members each bring different types of expertise that they contribute to the team. The learning by doing is then reinforced as the students take courses in physics, mathematics, chemistry, fluid mechanics, and the Sustainable Municipal Drinking Water Treatment course. By having hands-on experiences with the real world, they are then better equipped to learn abstract concepts and to synthesize knowledge.