Ctrl+Z| Rise to Resilience!

Project Details

Awards & Nominations

Ctrl+Z has received the following awards and nominations. Way to go!

Local Peoples' Choice Winner
Global Nominee

The Challenge | Rise to Resilience!

You are a newly appointed Regional Green Engineer. Your challenge is to develop green infrastructure solutions for complex challenges in water management and risk reduction.Create a tool to assess the characteristics of an urban or rural area of your choice, and integrate green infrastructures, or nature-based solutions, into that region’s development plans to1) reduce flood and/or drought risk2) establish sustainable land use practices3) support water management, and/or 4) produce local economic opportunities.

ARELYN

Rain and mist collector for producing drinking water with eco friendly system.

Ctrl+Z

MOTIVATION

Did you know that fresh water is running out?

NASA data informs about the decrease of aquifer mantiles and phreatic levels, and the process of purifying water is usually expensive and polluting. As a result of investigating mist collecting systems and rainwater collection, the opportunity was seen to devise and innovate a system that combines both methods.

ABOUT US

We’re a team with the vision of preserving our greatest natural resource: water. It allows every living being on earth to live, grow and enjoy a dignified life. Ctrl+Z is a team that doesn’t erase and forget, but goes a step back to learn from the past and make use of that knowledge for the well being of everyone, for the well being of the generations to come.

Ctrl+Z is a multidisciplinary team that majors in "Mechanical Engineering" and "Design and Visual Communications". Studying in the same college campus, our team met during different school activities and as soon as we found out about the competition we didn't hesitate to become a team.

OUR DATA

We used NASA satellite imagery about atmospheric climate zones to know suitable places for the implementation of ARELYN. We also used NASA statistics about drinking water shortages.

Public government information was also used to know the location of aquifer mantles and how much water is left in them. Not to mentions that we also used demographic information to know where ARELYN is needed. Lastly, we consulted experts on site to know what materials to use.

OUR PROJECT

Rain and mist eco-friendly system collector that produces drinking water.

ARELYN is inspired by a mixture of lotus flower petals and trees. This system has fog catchersstrategically located to collect the largest amount of water particles in mist. Meanwhile, the petal-shaped structure collects rainwater and redirects it to the center where a filter is placed for water remineralization and purification.

Filter

It consists of 3 phases. Phase 1 is a 5 micron filter that removes the environmental impurities like dust or debris that come with mist and rain water. Phase 2 is a mineralizing filter that gives minerals back to the water so it becomes suitable for human daily consumption. Phase 3 is placed just before human consumption and it consists of a ultraviolet light that sterilizes the water making it drinkable.

CHALLENGES FACED

At first we had a lot of great ideas but they were all scratched out and turned down because they were all too complex to develop over a 48 hour competition.

During the hack time one of the our team members, Arely, got seriously sick. Ctrl+Z had to take some time off to be with Arely while the paramedics checked up on her. At the end, our valuable team mate had to retire from the competition due to doctors orders thus bringing down the morale we had as a team. To raise our motivations back up we decided to call the project ARELYN in honor of our fallen team mate, Arely. ARELYN is also an acronym in Spanish for "Water Collected from Rain and Mist".

VISUALIZING THE FUTURE

Ctrl+Z is not limited to the original plan, we are pioneers and see a future beyond the horizon. This is why we came up with more ideas and/or improvements for our current project, such as:

  • Create water banks, identifying wetlands in the region with information directly from NASA.
  • Implement an anchor that retains large amounts of fluids to prevent landslides and flooding due to deforestation.
  • Develop it on a larger scale to provide shade for crops in addition of being a water bank.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SOURCES