Index

Index………………………………………………………………………
……….2

Problem statement……………………………………………….
………………3

Hypothesis.…………………………………………………….……...
………….3

Introduction…………………………………………….
……………………...….4

Theoretical framework………………………………………………..
………5-7

Process - materials………………………………….
……………………………8

Objectives -
facts…………………………………………………………………9

Conclusion…………………………………………………………………
…….10

Bibliography………………………………………………………………
…..…11
 PROBLEM STATEMENT

Knowing the water level in a container that we can not see is

an enigma, so far we can only decipher the accumulated amount by
opening the lid to check how much liquid we have left.

HYPOTHESIS

Bulding a simple device, using copper wire lines as an

electicity conductor can lead to determine the amount of water in a
container. We believe that our project could help to reduce the risk
of accidents or deaths caused by having the cisterns constantly
opened for measuring the water level. We also belive that by not
having to open the lid of the water tanks often, we can avoid further
contamination of the water or the entrance of insects to it.
 Introduction
Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with
the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric
charge. The electricity is originated by the existence of electrons and
knowing this fact we have made copper wire the main object of our
experiment. The copper wire is a great conductor of electricity
because of the enormous amount of free electrons that it possesses
and that can move freely through it. Copper's outer electrons move
easily with little energy and carry current rapidly along the surface.
That movement of electrons in the same direction produces the
phenomenon known as electricity. The advantages of using copper
as a conductor are those that make it so widely used in electricity,
one of its main advantages is that it has a higher electrical
conductivity than most metals, also being so abundant, it represents
a relatively cheaper option compared to other metals. Copper is also
safe and reliable because although it is a very thin wire it is resistant
to breakage. With our project we are proving how simple copper
wire lines can lead to determine the amount of water in a container.
We all know that water produces energy and that copper is a
conductor, so having that knowledge we thought, it was too simple
just to show that, so we wanted to go further and apply a bit of
electronics to create something useful as our water meter. And if
anybody wonder why we use electronics in an electricity issue, the
answer is very simple: everything electronic is electrical.

Water storage tanks, also known as cisterns, are primarily

used to store water for domestic and consumptive purposes in
households or buildings. Water tanks are typically found in areas
where a potable water supply isn't offered within the community, the
area yields low ground water capability, or the groundwater quality is
poor. It is impossible to know the amount of water that is stored in a
cistern without opening it. So, we build a measurer that will tell us
the water level in tanks, and it will prevent accidents such as
drowning in one of them.

The need to measure the availability of stored water

increases, because if we keep checking the water level we are able
to make a more appropriate use of it and safe even more when the
hard times arrive, like the one we face now.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Currently, our country is facing one of the most severe drought

moments of the last 50 years. Rationing water has become more
than a form of saving to help the planet, in a hard and real need that
we are all facing. The state companies that supply the precious
liquid are not being able to satisfy the needs of the consumers,
given to the scarcity. All Dominicans in some way or another are
storing water for the days that water does not arrive regularly
through the pipes.

Every day we see in family homes the tinacos are used more,
due perhaps to their easy installation and that they are resistant to
corrosive substances. The water tanks have various storage
capacities; from 250 liters to 25.00 liters, it is a little complicated for
some families to determine how much water is still stored after
starting to use them.

On the other hand, the cisterns are still very used, because
although they require major work to have them in our homes, their
storage capacity is greater than the one that the water tanks have. A
cistern is capable of storing as much water as the building allows,
normally the number of inhabitants or the frequency of its use is
calculated, being able to contain those that are built to supply an
apartment building more than 30,000 liters. Imagine the difficulty of
knowing how much water there is in it and the danger of falling into
one with the depth they are built.

Every year in the world almost 360,000 people die by

drowning and many of those deaths are in water tanks. A lot of
people fall to cisterns and drown in order to see the amount of
water. This project will prevent a lot of accidents, the constant
opening to check water level is going to reduce the probabilities of
accident.

As it was reported in the newspaper “El Caribe”, a one-year-

old boy died after falling into a cistern in Higüey, La Altagracia
province. The institution said that the boy Rodalny Domínguez
García fell into a cistern, where he died of asphyxiation by
immersion. The child was in the area where the cistern is located,
which at that time was uncovered and the child fell into the water.
Also, according to the website of "CDN" a child died in the sector of
Tamboril in the National District, when he fell in an open cistern, this
child also had only one year. The newspaper “Diario Libre” reported
that in Nagua, María Trinidad Sánchez Province, the corpse of the
24-year-old laborer, Miguel Ángel Portoreal Báez, was taken from
the cistern of a slaughterhouse, as a result of suffocation by
immersion, according to the diagnosis of the acting physician.
It is obvious the danger of having an open tank, keeping it always
properly closed and only opening it .on days that require cleaning,
avoid neglecting to forget to close the lid and completely avoidable
accidents occur.

It is also very worrying to know that every time that you open a
cistern or a water tank, millions of bacterias go into the water. Some
diseases that contaminated water can cause are: cholera, typhoid
fever, shigella, poliomyelitis, meningitis, hepatitis, diarrhea. In the
Caribbean, the diseases that have affected the most have been in
past few years are: Zika, Dengue and Chikungunya. These diseases
are caused by a especial mosquito called the Aedes aegypti, this
kind of mosquitoes lay their eggs in water containers. Storage of
drinking water and other urban water, containers can provide
habitats for Aedes aegypti larvae, one way to prevent their formation
is to keep the water tanks closed all the time.

In the Dominican Republic, in the year 2018 alone, 1,251

cases of dengue were registered and in 2017 about 1,262 cases
with four deaths between the two years.   The most important
outbreak of dengue occurred in the country it was in 2009. Latin
America showed an increase in the number of cases of dengue in
2018, with one last outbreak in Jamaica, which has raised the level
of concern in other areas of the Caribbean.

In 2014, 7,520 suspected cases of chikungunya fever were

detected in the country.  In the Dominican Republic last year there
was one death from the disease.

In 2016 the epidemic of Zika arrived in the Dominican

Republic, leaving 5241 infected, 285 of the cases led people to
suffer from Guillain-Barré syndrome (it is a serious health problem
that occurs when the defense system of the the body attacks part of
the nervous system by mistake and causes nerve inflammation to
occur, which causes muscle weakness or paralysis and other
symptoms), 17 people died and 22 children were born with
microcephaly (smaller head than it should). In countries like ours,
Zika is still a threat. Scientists discovered that the virus transmitted
by the mosquito Aedes Aegypti mutated and causes more damage
to the progenitor cells of brain tissue. The country has suffered two
major outbreaks of mosquito-borne diseases: chikungunya in 2014
and zika in 2016.

The Dominican Republic is in the midst of an extreme water

crisis. This has been confirmed by the main officials of the National
Institute of Hydraulic Resources (Indrhi), the Ministry of Agriculture,
the Santo Domingo Aqueduct and Sewer Corporation (CAASD) and
other institutions that ensure the proper use of water resources.
The drought should be an opportunity to learn, and become
aware of the importance of conserving water, of every little drop that
reaches our homes. They also affirm that Dominicans waste too
much water, because we do not have a culture to appreciate it.
The authorities also remember to implement campaigns to
save water only in times of drought. And it should not be like that,
maybe now that we know that the water is being rationed and we
have to make the water we stored in our houses last for the difficult
days, we learn to conserve it if we know that we are already
spending our reserve.
MATERIALS

• A water container
• Aluminum foil
• 5 yards of copper wire #36
• 9v battery
• A perforated bakelite
• 4 resistors 220 ohms
• 6 bjj 2n2222 transistors
• Led diodes
• Scotch tape.

PROCESS

To build the prototype we started by cutting aluminum foil

strips, according to the size of the container. We also cut the copper
wires proportional to the size of the water container. We sanded the
terminals of the copper wires so that the copper could act more
easily as an energy conductor. By sanding them a little they are able
to take the energy of the water to the electrical circuit. We taped the
copper and the aluminum together to create a reaction called redox
which makes possible for the copper to transfer the energy more
efficiently, because the aluminum foil helps the copper to transfer
the electrons. After we put together the copper wire and the
aluminum strips, we tape them to the water container.
To form the circuit, we connected the resistors and the
transistors to a bakelite which acts as the base of the electrical
circuit and at the same time is connected to a 9-volt battery to power
the circuit.
After that we proceed to connect the circuit to 3 different LED
diodes, that act similar to a traffic light, where each color represents
the 3 levels of water. When the red light is on it means that the
storage level is at is minimum capacity, the yellow is the indication of
the midlevel and with the green we are safe because it means the
water tank is full.
Having everything assemble we tested the prototype to check that it
acted in the way expected by us and it was.
OBJECTIVE:

Our main objective after proving the conductivity capacity of

the copper wire is to be able to measure water level in close
containers. By creating our prototype, we aim to make the handling
of cisterns or tinacos in our homes easier and safer, since we
eliminate the need to constantly open the tank to check the water
level. With this, we do not only simplify the form of revision, but we
avoid the danger that opening the lid just to check represents. We
also can avoid the water contamination by particles of dust in the air
or insects that can penetrate by opening the tank unnecessarily.

FACTS

 Water produces energy.

 copper wire is a great electricity conductor.
 Everything electronic is electrical.
 Every time we open a cistern or a water tank millions of
bacterias go into the water.
 Contaminated water can cause diseases like: cholera, typhoid
fever, poliomyelitis, meningitis, hepatitis, diarrhea.
 The diseases that have affected the most in the past few years
in our country are: zika, dengue and chikungunya. These
diseases are caused by a especial mosquito called the aedes
aegypti, this kind of mosquitoes lay their eggs in water
containers and one way to prevent their formation is to keep
the water tanks closed all the time.
 Newspapers have reported the death of children and adults in
the last years by falling into open tanks, in some provinces of
the country.
  Keeping cisterns properly closed and only opening it on days
that require cleaning, avoid neglecting to forget to close the lid
and that completely avoidable accidents occur.

Conclusion

Having everything assemble we tested the prototype to check

if it acted in the way expected by us and it did. Our device was able
to indicate the water remaining in the container with a close lid. We
can affirm that basic knowledge of electricity can be very useful,
because with simple materials we manage to build an efficient and
easy-to-build prototype that can have a positive impact on the
management of water deposits.
Since we decided to have some form of water storage in our
homes, we should also prepare ourselves to give it the best possible
use, always keeping the water as potable as possible and without
these water deposits representing any danger. Avoiding water
contamination by keeping water tanks perfectly closed is a
necessary decision. There should not exist the danger that some
person or even one of our pets could fall into a cistern, due to the
carelessness of leaving an open lid, that kind of news should never
be read in the newspaper.
The need to store water around the world grows every time, so
we will see more use of cisterns and water tanks. Let's also be more
aware of the water we have and let’s give it a better use! When we
reach the end of our work, we are convinced that this project can
help revolutionize to some extent an aspect not so contemplated by
others previously and even bring improvements in quality of life for
the Dominican population.

Our project can positively impact the Dominican people and

maybe even the world. The need to store water around the world
grows every time, so we will see more use of cisterns and water
tanks.

Let's also be more aware of the water we have and let’s give it
a better use!
 Bibliography

 September 9, 2016. An 18-month-old boy dies by falling into a

cistern. Retrieved from:
https://www.diariolibre.com/actualidad/sucesos/un-nino-de-18-
meses-muere-al-caer-en-una-cisterna-MI4864952

 April 5, 2016. One-year-old boy dies when falling in cistern in

Higüey. Retrieved from:
https://www.elcaribe.com.do/2016/04/05/sin-categoria/nino-
ano-muere-caer-cisterna-higuey/

 September 29, 2013. One-year-old boy dies by falling into a

cistern. Retrieved from:
https://wp.cdn.com.do/2013/09/29/nino-de-un-ano-muere-al-
caer-en-cisterna/

 March 12, 2018. Zika remains a threat to DR; vaccine is in

phase II trial. Retrieved from:
https://www.elcaribe.com.do/2018/03/12/panorama/pais/zika-
sigue-siendo-una-amenaza-para-rd-vacuna-esta-en-fase-ii-de-
prueba/

 December 20, 2018. Dengue cases continue to increase in the

Dominican Republic. Retrieved from: https://listindiario.com/la-
republica/2018/12/20/546520/continuan-en-aumento-los-
casos-de-dengue-en-la-republica-dominicana