Designing the Prototype

Hello from Greengineering!

This week I went on a field trip, missing two days of class so I did not work that much on the HydroLoft system. However, I am in the process of designing a prototype. I am calling the prototype Alpha-HydroLoft (or AHL for short). AHL is going to be a 1/4 size of the real system and designed on a grid representing two by two square feet. The real system is estimated to be six feet tall and six feet long, excluding the top shelf, which is an extra one and a half feet for solar panels to power the system.

Originally, the prototype was going to be tubes that conducted water with plants in them. See the image below.

However, there is a problem, how to hold the tubes up? I was thinking rope but I am still not sure of that. I talked to my biology teacher about the system, and she suggested plastic bottles with soil and rocks that drained out the bottom into the next. The only problem I had was that there wouldn't be constant flow, the pump would need to be inactive and there would also need to be accounting for the water absorbed by the soil. So I thought of a compromise:

This is the same idea as the pipe system, but each plastic bottle drains to the next, like a set of stairs. This plan could change again, but the plastic bottle stairs idea is great because it is aesthetically pleasing, uses plastic bottles, and allows the water to flow quickly and easily. It would also be much easier to tie rope around; once at the first indent, then again at the bottleneck. Once I have finished the AHL design, I will write about that and about building it.

Thanks for reading,
Ben