Week 2

     This week, there was a complete redesign of the project. After more research was done, the group decided to change some things in order to make a more effective product. The new idea was to have a slanted glass top. This would allow heat to enter the solar still which would increase the evaporation rate of the water. Also, the slant would allow the evaporation to run down towards the collection area. This new design can be seen in Figure 2.1. 

Figure 2.1: Sketch of New Design

      However, it was decided that having the collection area in the solar still was a waste of space. A tweak to this new design was made. A three-dimensional model of this can be seen in Figure 2.2.

Figure 2.2: Example of Design Change

     The design change allows for much more dirty water to be added in the solar still. A family would be able to fill this with water in the morning and have 5-8 gallons of water at night and could do this each day. Our goal is to make these affordable so each family could own one.