Charclish: 3 Bucket Water Filter

This was a project that our class worked on for about 3-4 months and then as a group for about 1-2 months. In our group we have Eli Steria, Christian Tamayo, and Apollo Torres. Although we are all three very different, we all found a way to work together and finish our pieces.

For this project we started off by getting buckets so we would be able to hold water. Since we knew that our project was going to be some type of water filter we knew that we needed containers for the water. So the first step to building our filter is to get three different buckets or just three buckets that are the same.

After you get the three buckets you need to make our design, you then go and find a drill to make holes in all three buckets. You start off by picking two of the three buckets and then you drill a hole at the bottom of the bucket right in the center. Then once you have the two buckets done, you move to the last bucket. On the last bucket you then drill a hole on the side of the bucket, close to the bottom so the water can come out of the spigot when you turn it on. Basically, drilling holes and then glueing the spigot to the last bucket is all step 2 requires.

The next step is actually putting together the core of the filter itself, which is the charcoal, sand, and activated carbon. For this part of the build you start by picking one of the two buckets with the holes on the bottom and you temporary patch the bottom with something that won't allow anything through. Next you start by dumping quite a bit of charcoal and then on top you pour the sand. After that, you place the activated carbon above it all. There is no certain amount of how much you need to use, as long as it fits in the buckets thats all that matters.

Once the main parts of the filter have been built, it's now time to move to the next part which is the trash prevention part of the filter. So for this part we started off by using three coffee filters at the bottom of the bucket with the charcoal, sand, and activated carbon and we glued them to the bottom to prevent dirt from getting through. Then for the next part, we used a flannel we found and we used it at the very top of the filter to prevent any initial dirt from getting in.

Finally, came the last step we needed to finish the project which was to stack all the buckets on top of one another and that was it. The pictures shown above are very close to what our actual project looked like.

Lastly, since our prototype was finished all we had left to do was test to see if our water was actually sanitary and safe for people to drink. So we tested three things to see if our filter worked which were the pH, turbidity, and phosphate. Our first two tests which were pH and turbidity were successful, however our phosphate was not and we still have much testing to do. Overall, our project was been quite the adventure and it has been very successful.