Human-Powered Potable Water Still

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of these guidelines is to help those responsible for setting up a contest site for one of the 2007 Student Professional Development Conferences (SPDC). They can be used as a check sheet to make sure everything is in place and ready for the contestants.

VENUE REQUIREMENTS

This year’s contest requires all contestants to operate their devices simultaneously. Furthermore, the nature of the contest requires a lot of movement by the device operators and by “runners” who will be reporting device operating data to the judges throughout the contest. The organizing committee should plan on allowing an area of approximately 10’ x 10’ per team and should ensure that the contest venue can accommodate these space requirements.

PERSONNEL REQUIREMENTS

The organizing committee is responsible for finding and appointing a three-person Judging Panel. Typically, these should be ASME members. For this contest the following judges are needed:

• One Chief Judge who will also be in charge of device inspection.  At this time (Feb.20. 2007) all Chief Judges have been appointed.
• One Time-Keeper.
• One Recorder (will act as a backup Time-Keeper).
• An Impound Official to ensure the devices are not handled by students after assembly and before the contest begins, if needed, and to release them to the teams when their contest time comes up. He/she will not qualify devices. This judge would be able to help with one of the tasks above once the competition starts.

The preliminary checking of the device for rules compliance may be done by any of these judges, usually operating as a part of an inspection team.  Additional judges may be helpful in keeping an eye on teams and ensuring that they operate their devices within the framework of the contest rules during the contest. However, an odd number of total judges should be maintained.

In addition to the judges, organizers will need to ensure that each team has a “runner” available for bringing team progress reports back to the Recorder. This runner should not be a member of that team. Another student or spectator could serve this function, or each team could have one of its members run for another team.

SUGGESTED TIME ALLOCATION

For planning purposes, the following guidelines are given:

Activity	Time
Judge’s water preparation	60 min
Check-in with devices, Inspect device size/Weigh-in	30-60 min.
Student device set-up	30 min.
Judges' inspection & Peer Review	30 min.
Extra time because something WILL cause a set back. Time for judges to ensure no rules are being broken, supply additional quantities of water, if needed, etc.	30-60 min.
Contest Time (optional Student Device presentations to be done during contest)	60 min.
Post-contest weighing of water	30 min.
Score calculation and final decision made	30 min.
Clean up (may be concurrent with judges’ scoring/deliberations)	30 min.
Awards/prizes	30 min.

If you put all of this together, pre-contest time allocation should be about 4 hours!

EQUIPMENT AND MATERIALS

• Computer
• Video Projector
• Projector screen or suitable projection surface
• Two digital stop watches / timers (Note: This could also be done via computer.)
• Tape measure
• Scale/balance
• Funnel(s)
• Food coloring (two different colors)
• Surveyors Tape or equivalent
• Water
• Water bottles/containers (one per team) capable of holding 200 mL
• Water bottles/containers (one per team) capable of holding 1 L
• Water bottle(s) capable of holding 2 L or additional 1 L bottles as necessary
• Large pail or dishpan for handling water coloring
• 5 or 10 L container for use in weighing all of returned water at conclusion of the contest

Judges may choose to fill empty bottles with “tap” water, or may choose to use bottled water.

PREPARATION

• The Chief Judge for each contest has been named as these suggestions are going to press.  . The Time-Keeper, Impound Official, and Recorder should be appointed prior to the SPDC.
• Either a complete copies of the rules, contest procedures, and the categorical "Questions and Answers" need to be provided to all judges or they need to be supplied with the complete URL to find them on the web. At least one printed reference copy should also be provided for use at the contest, should none of the judges bring rules copies with them.
• All personnel involved with the contest need to study the problem statement and the "Question & Answers" very carefully. Anything unclear or confusing should be discussed by the Judging Panel before the contest. Judges should have available access to the Q&A for reference using the “categorical” sorting approach.

SUGGESTED PROCEDURE AT THE START OF THE CONTEST

Prior to students arriving with their devices, judges should oversee preparation of the water to be used in the contest. All teams will be supplied with at least two bottles of polluted water. These bottles must have a team number or other identification written on them when they are distributed. One bottle will be filled with 200 mL of polluted water; teams are required to use all of this water. The second bottle will be filled with approximately 1 L of polluted water, and the quantity must be known and recorded; teams may use as much or as little of this water as desired. Judges should also prepare some “extra” polluted water for teams requesting greater amounts upon device check-in. All water provided to teams must be weighed out, and the weight of all bottles (with caps if used) should be measured and recorded.

In addition to the polluted water, judges should also prepare a second batch of “polluted” water for teams to use in a condenser cooling circuit, if desired. See Q&A number 628. This water must be dyed with a different color dye than the polluted water that is to be distilled. Each team may receive a maximum of 2 L of this water. The vessel(s) used to distribute this water to teams should be weighed, the water measured out based on weight, and the water weight recorded.

The first thing a team must do is check in with the Recorder to register the device. The team’s running order should be determined randomly upon check-in (e.g., by having the teams pick numbers from a hat at the time they check in their device). Judges should also determine if a team will require an amount of water greater than 1.2 L to use in “charging” their device or requires additional polluted water for use in a condenser cooling loop at this time

A sizing inspection and weigh-in should also be conducted at this time. At this point, the devices will be unassembled and teams will weigh their device while it is still in its storage/transport box. In some cases, this box will not be a part of the device, and the weight of the box itself will need to be recorded after the device has been removed and set up to obtain the actual device weight.

After all devices have been weighed/measured, the device assembly period can begin. This should last no more than 30 minutes. If judges observe a team taking substantially more than the 30-minute limit, they may require the team to stop assembling and finish assembly during the contest run time.  The devices should be set-up/assembled in the contest location in which they will be operated. During the 30-minute setup and practice time, the team may test and/or modify its system in any way it wants, consistent with space limitations set by the contest organizers and the rules/Q&A of the contest. During this period, students must not place any water into their device.

At the end of the assembly time the judges will open the peer review period and begin conducting their inspections. During this time teams and judges should review all of the competing devices, determining their principles of operation and noting any items which may not fit within the rules. Possible rules violations identified by students should be reported to any member of the judging team. There must always be at least one team member attending each competing device to explain its operation to others. At no time may contestants touch another team's device. After the peer review period is concluded the judges will no longer accept any questions by a contestant about any other team's device.

Once the peer review period has been completed the judges will review all of the devices, including any already checked, to rule on any questions raised and to clear them for competition. At the discretion of the Chief Judge, the peer review period and the judge’s review period may be run concurrently, so long as the opportunity is provided for teams to raise any questions on all devices. Concurrent review by the judges and teams is recommended as discussed above.

When the Chief Judge (or designated representative) has cleared the device for competition and the contest is ready to begin, the team will be supplied with the water for use.

The competition area must be supervised by the Impound Official from the time the first device is assembled until the beginning of the competition. No team may touch or alter their device after inspection.  The cleared devices may be clearly marked off with surveyor’s tape or other appropriate means if necessary.

The Chief Judge must make it clear to any team whose device did not clear inspection just what the problem is and what standards they must meet to get their device qualified.   CAUTION: Judges must not give technical direction or advice to any team regarding how repairs or alterations should be made.

The judges should have a pre-contest meeting with the contestants to discuss the contest rules and procedures and to answer any questions.

Note: the Chief Judge must be the only point of contact for any and all questions asked by team members about contest rules before or during the contest. The Chief Judge may discuss any questions with the judging panel before answering them and will announce the decision to everyone. This will minimize the possibility of different teams getting different answers to the same questions.

PROCEDURE DURING THE TEST

After the “start” signal is given by the judges, teams may begin charging their devices with polluted water and begin operation of their device. As the test period proceeds, judges will continuously monitor the current water temperatures each team is reaching. Temperatures reached in each device will be reported by volunteer (student) runners on a timely basis (roughly every 5 minutes) to the Recorder for entry on a spreadsheet. A student “runner” may not report values for a team from his or her own school. Entered on the spreadsheet prior to the start of the run will be the weight of water charged into the still at the start of the heating process and information on any splits in storage location within the device. As the run proceeds a score representing total thermal gain of and condensate collected by each team will be projected in bar-graph format in as close to real-time as possible on a large screen for everyone to see as the contest progresses. (Note that this displayed score will not include the size and weight factors, and the projected scores must be treated as provisional, not final contest scores.)

Teams may change device operators as many times as desired during the contest. Not all team members are required to operate the device. Teams are not allowed to operate valves or switches during the competition. Shifting of gears in a gear train may only occur upon changing of a device operator.

At the discretion of the Chief Judge, teams may be given an opportunity during the contest to speak to the contest audience about their team’s device. This is not required, and should be kept to about 2-3 minutes per team to minimize interference with the contest.

Upon completion of the competition, a signal should be given by the Time-Keeper. Receiving containers for any distilled water will be removed and may be covered/capped. The containers will then be moved to the measuring location, where the quantity of any distillate will be determined by the judges by weighing.

At this time teams must also capture and return all of the water they were issued (including any for the condenser cooling) for weighing as well.  If more than 10 percent of the water they were given is missing their score will be adjusted in concurrence with the stated rules.

DETERMINING THE WINNER

See the contest Rules for the manner in which a winner is to be determined. A summary is provided here.

At the end of the run all teams are responsible for recovering all of the water from their device and taking it to the measuring station along with any of the water they were given that they have not used. The judges will check the total weight of returned water. If less than 90% of the water given to a team is present at the end of the run the score the team receives will be adjusted as follows:

Adjusted Score = Raw Score * [(1.1 * wt of water returned)/(wt of water issued)]

Raw scores are determined by the following formula:

SCORE = (Weight of distilled water, gm) * 10,000
          + (Wt of test water in device, gm, at end) * (Tend – Tstart, C)
          – (Dry weight of the device, gm.) / 100 
          – (Volume of box in which device can be packed, cm^3) / 1000

If the water in the test device is contained in more than one reservoir, then the weights of water in each reservoir at the start will be multiplied by the difference between temperatures in that reservoir at the start and at the end of the test to determine the second scoring factor. Download a scoring sheet.

The MAXIMUM score wins.