Wednesday, July 11th (AM) -- Cool by Design

Today we visited the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum. Our tour guide took us to the garden where we explored the Design for the Other 90% exhibit. Cooper Hewitt's website tells us that "this exhibition highlights the growing trend among designers to create affordable and socially responsible objects for the vast majority of the world's population (90 percent) not traditionally serviced by professional designers."

We participated in a hands-on demonstration so we could see the value in certain designs that allow people in Africa to effectively pump, filter, and carry water.

Below are three inventions we used:
1) a ceramic water filter coated with silver;
2) a bamboo treadle pump;
3) a q-drum for carrying water

After we pumped water into the q-drum, we had a relay race, so we could see which was faster -- moving water with two clumsy buckets or moving water with a q-drum. Here's a picture of Malachi pulling the q-drum.