AguaClara at Cornell is a center for Research and Design of sustainable engineered processes to provide clean drinking water for communities everywhere. 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 focus on Researching, Inventing, and Designing using state of the art process control to automate parametric testing. Experimental automation 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 new 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. Click here to see student reflections from the most recent trip to Honduras.  |