Building A Solar-Powered Water Pump

Overview

For our project, we built four prototypes for a DIY solar-powered water pump. Irrigation systems in large farms are not being used with energy efficient and environment friendly sources, so we believe that building a DIY solar-powered irrigation system will help with this problem. For our first and third prototypes we used a plastic bottle and attached a DC motor soldered to wires connecting to a solar panel, to create an upward draft of water. For our second prototype, we used a Mendocino motor, which is a spinning shaft (made of solar panels) that is held up by two resisting magnets that was supposed to propel the water upward. For our fourth prototype we 3D printed an Archimedes screw attached to a DC motor. Our three criteria were efficiently watering the lettuce (has enough energy to propel the water shaft up), reliable in foggy/cloudy conditions, and easy to build for an eighth grader. Although none of our models met all three criteria, the second two prototypes scored decently well on the second and third criteria. Overall, this project provided a meaningful learning experience despite not fully meeting our intended goal.

Competition history

• CSEF 2026 Applied Mechanics (Junior Division) · Entry J-02-33

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