ACADEMIC FEATURE
Thinking Globally
By Mary Reed
Team Pump It Up designs, installs solar-powered water pump for African village
Team Pump it Up and community members work together to align and level the solar panel mounting structure.
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community in the West African country of Ghana once again has access to its spring water—and income from selling the water to neighboring villages—thanks to a group of recent mechanical engineering grads. “It was field engineering at its best,” said Nick Stormer, B.S.M.E. ’10, who served as team leader for Team Pump It Up, which designed a solar-powered water pumping system for the village of MaaseOffinso and installed it in July. “I don’t think there could have been something more real-world-or more difficult.”
But, as the team learned, things in developing countries happen very differently than here at home. They spent seven hours one day driving around a nearby city to find some bolts. The in-country dealer for the pump company never delivered on the second pump. There was an unexpected port-clearing charge to get the solar panels into Ghana. The subcontractor they hired to drill a well arrived a week late. And then the well collapsed. “We participated in the ritual sacrifice of a sheep to fix the well—and it worked,” Stormer reported, noting that water started flowing about two hours later.
Stormer and four other June mechanical engineering graduates—Adam Hensel, There were also cultural differences to Brent Willey, Kegan Kavander, and civil overcome. Americans were accustomed engineering grad Eric Gilliland—along to trying to minimize labor costs and with advisor Greg Kremer, Mechanical use technology to make processes more Engineering chair, spent three weeks efficient. In Africa, by contrast, labor Demonstrating community hospitality, in Ghana installing the system they had costs are low and technology is hard to these two villagers, posing with Mechanical Engineering Chair Greg Kremer, helped with designed back at home. Over the course of come by. But in the midst of eight- to the 2009–2010 academic year, the students all the team’s meals. ten-hour days, there was also some designed a mounting structure for a 20-panel, 3.5-kilowatt fun. The American engineers joined their Ghanaian hosts array to power two pumps to transfer water at a rate of 10,000 to crowd around a television for Ghana’s final World Cup gallons per day to nearby storage tanks. soccer game.
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