green technology

[deleted-304672]

I have a student who wishes to build a circuit that detects rain water and shuts off a sprinkler system. This is more of an engineering project and we would like ideas on how to convert it to a scientific method process. Any suggestions?

[deleted-71603]

Hello. Designing and building a device to solve a problem follows the engineering design process. It is different from the scientific method process, and you can read more about it here.

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/engineer ... ignprocess

This is an excellent science fair project and sounds very interesting. Are there other reasons why you want to change it to a scientific method process? Read through the process and write back if you have any questions.

Good luck!

[bfinio]

Hi,

Do you know if your student got the idea from this project on our site?

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p066.shtml

That project gives a simple design for a circuit that will detect whether a sponge is wet or dry (and just lights up an LED as an indicator - it does not turn a real sprinkler system on or off, which is much more complicated). I can think of a couple different examples of how you could do a scientific method project using that device, by changing some independent variable:

- The circuit has a handful of resistors in it - what happens if you change one of the resistor values?
- The project has you soak a sponge directly in tap water to get it wet. What happens if you try to simulate "rain" better (like with a watering can) - how long does it take for the sponge to get wet enough to trigger the circuit? How long does it take the sponge to dry out?