A power point slide -- with active video in the upper left corner -- from the Young Water Specialists presentation at the 2022 EWTS.

Meet the Young Water Specialists

June 1, 2022
The 2022 Emerging Water Technology Symposium concluded with a presentation by Team HydroPuris where they presented their new filtration system.

SAN ANTONIO, TX -- The final presentation on the final day of the EWTS was by the Young Water Specialists. Each year it is held the Symposium seeks out a group of young people studying science and engineering with water industry applications and talks to them about their work and plans for the future.

This year the group was Team HydroPuris, competitors in the eCybermission Competition, a virtual STEM competition for grades 6-9 created by the US Army. The team of 8th graders were: Shrey Agarwal, Hallie Wells Middle School and researcher; Armaan Jain, Herbert Hoover Middle School and designer; Akshay JillaB, Hallie Wells Middle School and community outreach; and Rohan Shah, Herbert Hoover Middle School and technologist.

The result of their efforts was a water filtration system that would be affordable to produce and simple to construct from readily available materials—ideal for for communities that have been displaced by natural disasters or conflicts. Their system uses a two plastic bottle design with gravel, sand, coffee filters, lemon peel, seaweed, rice husk and coconut fiber for filtration media. The final component is an LED-UV light to kill microorganisms.

The team put their filter through multiple rounds of testing and refinement which involved both a pH sensor and a turbidity sensor they programmed themselves using C++.

In the Q&A that followed their presentation, all members of the team expressed an interest in furthering their studies in science, engineering and programming.

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