Like much of the rest of the class, the most difficult of this assignment for me was coming up with a diverse group of solutions for the problem of cleaning Houston’s bayou system after a flood. To do this, I began at a very basic level by categorizing the both the problem and the potential solutions into categories as follows:

Types of trash:

• Floating
• Sinking
  • Metallic/magnetic
  • Nonmetallic

Solutions:

• Passive/stationary
• Active

For floating trash, nets dragged behind boats or nets that extend out from the shore seemed like the best option.

 

The shore-based nets are similar to the current litter boom system in their closed position, letting the middle of the stream pass unimpeded for boat traffic to continue through while cleaning the rest of the waterway, but can extend to fill the whole width of the flow without letting any trash through unnecessarily.

For the boat-mounted nets, I chose a kayak so as not to duplicate the role of the Bio-Vac (powered boat picking up floating trash. Such a system could be used in tandem with a promotion for free access for boaters who chose to help in the cleanup effort.

Another type of trash floating trash that might go unnoticed, but is the sheets of paper and plastic that become pressed up on the banks of waterways during strong waterflow and would therefore be missed by the above methods of collection. To solve this, I prototyped a component of a system that could be mounted either on a boat or be used from shore to agitate the water to push the aforementioned trash into middle of the stream to be collected.

The real crux of the cleanup issue, however, is cleaning up trash that sinks. To accomplish this goal, I developed an array of complete and component ideas:

Complete:

• Boat-mounted magnet to pick up metallic trash that sinks to the bottom of the bayou
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• A catch-net on the floor of the waterway that can be raised and lowered as needed
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• An unmanned vehicle with wheels mounted at a 45 degree angle to drive elevated from the bayou floor, with rakes and magnets to pick up trash
  • 

Component

The main goal of these solutions was to collect the sinking trash at a single spot for easier location and retrieval by the above methods.

• A large-grain filter to allow water to pass through fairly unimpeded while still stopping the larger pieces of trash (only a small part prototyped, but can be scaled to any size of waterway)
  • 
• Vertically-moveable stationary magnets
  • 
• Bunker-like traps
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• A field of hooks (like velcro on a large scale) to trap trash as it goes by, with a buoy for easy retrieval
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All in all, I found it easier to fully express my ideas in real physical products than I did when constrained to two dimensions, but sketching things out to brainstorm and build off of a common theme was very helpful.