Well, How Much?

Side note: I am so sorry these blogs have been late uploading. With the WiFi connection being spotty we are not always able to update the posts as quickly as we like. We all appreciate your patience especially on days where we end up uploading 3+ posts in one day.

Once again, the team has had a very productive day. In true engineering fashion, we got the system complete on the last day. Of course, that didn’t happen without Murphy’s Law pulling through for us. For those of y’all who don’t know, Murphy’s Law basically says “anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” Now here is the story…

We started the day a little late because yesterday exhausted us and no one slept super well with the power being out all night. By the time breakfast rolled around Billy was working on the controls of the system and Kirsten had taken videos of the system and narrating what was happening (don’t worry friends and family, we will be posting those to Facebook later so that everyone can watch and understand what we did).

Billy working on the control panels, ensuring everything is reading a proper voltage and has the correct power supplied.

Once everyone finally got outside, Kirsten, Sam, and myself climbed on the roof of the Traverse City house and took some pictures of the system with the trenches still dug. Carson and Billy were continuing to work on the controls as that was the last piece of the puzzle before we could fill in the trenches and cover the pipes.

This is our view from the roof of the house with the solar panels that supply the power to the system. From this view the system looks incredibly small, but I can assure you it is huge!

We climbed down from the roof and went back over to what has been deemed as “the hut.” The hut is the small structure that covers the control panels and houses all of the electronics for the sanitation system. When we got there to get an update all we heard was “go get Stephen. We can’t get the control panels to work. We need to get on the phone with people in the U.S.” Of course, Murphy’s Law. Everyone got super nervous and stressed for about 20 minutes until someone shouted “do we need to reset the plug to make the connections work?” Billy zoomed out of the hut to reset the plugs and sure enough the recirculating pump started running. Phew! We were all relieved that it started working. Maybe our luck wasn’t so bad.

The coolest part of the recirculating pump running was that those that were on the Peugeot Center senior design team got to see our nozzle we designed actually work and be put in the real world for application. Our design became a reality.

This is a picture of the nozzle installed in the filter tanks. The system was running on clean water for testing purposes. In the back you can see the media that was cut (roughly 18,000 pieces per tank… that’s a lot).

Now it was time to test the sludge pump. We opened the top to the clarifier tank to see it working and double check all of the connections. It is important to note that there is a check valve attached to the piping of the sludge pump. As soon as the pump kicked on, the check valve was leaking terribly. No one knew why. We guessed that the check valve might have been cross threaded and needed to replace it. Murphy’s Law came through again! Thankfully, we had two spare check valves. Sam, Austin, and I pulled up the pipe and pump and replaced the check valve. We had the sludge pump run another time with absolutely no issues. Yay! We figured our troubles had to be over.

Sam, Austin, and I pulling out the pump to get the old check valve removed and the new one on.

Billy and Carson continued to work on the controls. They were making sure that the senior design part of the project was running correctly once the pump controls were settled. The senior design part of the controls was recording the rainfall, ammonia concentration, and pump run times all while recording to an online data base called ThingSpeak. We could not fill in the trenches until they verified that all of the pumps were working and the ammonia sensor was recording data. Carson was the lead on the senior design portion of the controls as he has the most expertise. When the ammonia sensor got plugged in and the SC1000 was turned on we got no reading. Carson had studied the installation guide up and down and knew every detail about the ammonia sensor. There was no way it couldn’t be working. Carson calmly called Hach (the manufacturer of the ammonia sensor and SC1000) to see what was happening. Here’s how the meat of the conversation went:

---

Carson: “We have an error on the SC1000 that the ammonia concentration is too low.”

Hach: “Well, you need to calibrate the ammonia sensor in a lab.”

Carson: “We don’t have a lab because we’re in Africa.”

Hach: “Try to shake the ammonia cartridge to try and activate it.”

Carson: “Okay, is there anything else?”

Hach: “You need to put it in a container where you know the ammonia concentration.”

Carson: “We have no access to a lab…”

Hach: “Try putting it in something with higher ammonia concentration.”

Carson: “What if I added urine to the tank?”

Hach: “Well, how much?”

---

Thus, the blog title. This lead to some field engineering at its lowest. We had no choice but to add urine to the instrument well. At first people thought it was a joke but it was most definitely not a joke. We added urine to the instrument well in a last effort to get the system to work. If this wasn’t Murphy’s Law then I don’t know what is. The names of those that contributed will be left anonymous but let’s just say most of us got a great laugh out of it.

Everyone standing around the instrument well, about to add the urine in (that one was for you, George). You notice Kirsten and Stephen standing far away. They had the right idea.

A little while later we found out that in fact the addition of urine worked! Thank goodness that wasn’t a waste. We were finally allowed to add the black water to the system and check the system for any leaks. We were good to go. The team started filling in the trenches while Carson and Billy worked on the data upload to ThingSpeak. Filling in the trenches was hard work on the last day in the heat. We got it finished but Billy and Carson were still working.

After dinner Billy and Carson went back out to continue working while Leah, Hanleigh, Kirsten, and I went to the Linary House. The Linary House houses several of the girls that we have built relationships with these past two weeks. We went over to hang out with them and tell them goodbye since we leave when they are in school tomorrow. Getting to spend time with the girls was such a great investment. Seeing their faces light up when we got to their house made all of our tiredness and frustration go away. Kirsten helped two of the older girls with some homework while Leah, Hanleigh, and I talked to some of the younger ones. I ended up asking some of them how they spelled their names and ended up writing down all 25 names of the children in the house. There are 24 girls and 1 boy. That is one packed house! They helped me not only spell al of their names but also pronounce them. When I mispronounced their names they laughed and so did I. Spending time with the girls was the best way I could think of to end the two weeks of hard work.

Once we left the Linary House Stephen told us that some people were going to meet with some administrative staff and the director of the village. In the meeting we did a short debrief with them of the project and thanked them for being such wonderful hosts during our stay. They asked if they could meet with all 12 of our team members so we walked over to the house. When everyone met they brought out different bags made by the students at The Village of Hope Trade School. It was such a kind gesture and everyone enjoyed being able to thank one another for these past two weeks.

Our team with the administrative staff and director of The Village of Hope.

We might have hit some bumps along the way today but all in all I am happy that we got to have every experience here. Personally, I think we kicked Murphy’s Law in the butt by having team members who were willing to trouble shoot and work as long as it took. As I was writing this, the guys walked in at 11:55pm telling me that everything was running perfectly. Once again, true engineering fashion. Getting it done just before the deadline. Who knows what would have happened if the clock struck 12:00am and they weren’t done. Maybe our whole system would have turned into a pumpkin!

As we begin our travels tomorrow, please pray for our safety, patience, and preparedness. Even though we are all extremely tired I think that we are going to miss all of the parents and children we have met. Kyle, Joe, and Austin playing soccer with the boys, Stephen, Salah, Leah, and Carson playing basketball with the children, Kirsten, Hanleigh, and I teaching the girls Little Sally Walker, or Billy and Sam having great conversations teaching the children about what we were building are all memories that we will treasure and can’t wait to come home and tell all of our friends and family about.