First off, I started to brain storm how to approach this problem from the information given. When I first got to the OEDK, the low fidelity kit was taken by DFA and so I had a solid hour to plan out what I was doing.

I tried to break the problem down into components. First, I realized that the purpose was not necessarily to have a surface trash collecting mechanism since there the bio-vac and another mechanism was already in place for this. So, I then broke the problem down into land, mid-water and deep water. The reason for land is because in the problem statement it said that when the there is the transition from high to low tide trash can get stuck on the shrubs and small trees that are now above ground. Then I further broke down the problem horizontally into “center” and “side”.  Then I figured that I cannot make just a magnetic mechanism since most of the trash is not metal based. I figured I would have to do some sort of hybrid solution.

 

 

 

Here are my prototypes all laid out.  

The five components are to the right. The top right lever arm is representative of a mechanical arm with a metallic spike bar at the tip and this is to pick up the trash that is stuck on twigs and in the same process clean up small metallic chunks near the banks of the water. The white ball with magnet on the red box represents a giant magnet that held in place midway between the top and bottom of the banks. Since it is difficult to be free standing due to changes in the entire body’s density as trash collects in it, it would be better suited for use near the banks where a chain can be used to attach it.  On the bottom of the prototype we have a flap that opens to allow the materials to come in and then closes when sensors inside the magnet do not detect strong attractive forces.

The component below it is a suction pipe specifically designed to suck up all debris at the deep water level along the sides of the banks.

And to the left of that, we have a solar panel (and regular generator) powered mechanism the acts as a deep water vacuum that sucks up debris and has a filter that will filter the water back out while trapping the debris. The flow rates in and out will also remain constant to avoid complications.

To the left of that is a mechanism that can be used on a ship. It will simultaneously pick up metallic surface debris and also has a net that will collect mid-depth debris.

The oar looking things are oars with nets attached at the midlength. The idea is for kayakers to also help clean up while having fun and exercising.

Next there is a red boat with nets and filtration devices attacked to it via flexible pipe and the purpose of this is to distill some of the water near the vicinity of largely concentrated areas of underwater debris.

Finally, at the top I created a prototype of a large-scale structure that would both pick up debris from the bottom of the bayou at the center and also on the sides. There are 2 rotating bins that will collect the debris and funnel it into the main chamber while the side conical vacuums will pick up debris in the deepwater along the banks.