rope pump team output

the output from the rope pump team was quite impressive.

their design yielded a base rope pump that costs – here in the U.S., at our prices – less than $72.  they also created an optional bike-drive attachment for just under $65.  but in developing areas, the materials are usually less expensive and many can be salvaged from scrap materials.  items that can easily be found from old bikes or junkyards could reduce the price of the pump below $60, and the steel for the bike frame is often easily salvageable as well.  this is critically important, as people who live on less than $2 a day must be careful in how they invest the little money they are able to collect.

for another, more detailed video, see HERE.

in addition to a full report on the project and a detailed instruction manual for building both the pump and the bike drive, the students also provided a full-scale model, shown in the video above pumping water up from a pool to a high dive platform.  also shown, below, is a picture of their working mini model.  they produced this as a traveling show-and-tell to illustrate the use of a rope pump in prospective communities.  (incidentally, I think this was brilliant!)

mini model for demonstrating how a rope pump works

the instruction manual shows how the mechanism works, how to assemble and install the pump, how to operate it, and how to maintain it.  it also contains tables for sizing a rope pump to different well depths.  this allows anyone to make such a pump specific to their own unique situation.  the report also provides mathematical analyses of water weight and volume, pipe and rope sizing, drag forces, piston sizing, and leak rates.

at the end of the semester, the team presented at a humanitarian engineering symposium just as the other two teams did, and also participated in Design Day, an event where engineering students across the school present posters and show off their design projects.  and the rope pump prototype has already moved south to Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.  from there, the project sponsor (from MSU 's Institute for International Agriculture) is taking the prototype to Honduras or Guatemala. 

the students on the rope pump team were Austin Tokarski, Daniel Kenny, Jonathan Shapiro, and Tyler Rumler (who provided me with all of this information).   you can see all of their work, videos, etc. at this website:

MSU Rope Pump Team