Fresh Water Hat

Votes: 0
Views: 32537

Star Wars began with Luke Skywalker working on a moisture farm. Moisture farming was the only way to get enough water to sustain life on the desert planet of Tattooine. This hat was designed as a portable moisture farm.

There are many places on earth that fresh water is not readily available. Also there are many places where the water supply is not great enough to sustain the population density there. In the next 10 years, it is likely that wars will be fought over fresh water supply disputes.

The Fresh Water Hat is a lifeguard hat that uses solar panels to power a miniature compressor and a fan. A fundamental air conditioning system can be designed out of the compressor, a valve, a fan, a coil and refrigerant.

The Fresh Water Hat blows refrigerated air onto the head of the wearer, but the cold air is just a by-product of the hat's primary function.

Warm air will be forced across the front and back faces of the coil. Water condenses onto the coil and drips into the trough. A flexible tube is attached to the low point of the trough. That tube can drain into a canteen or directly into the wearer's mouth.

It is likely that the hat will produce between 2 cups and a quart of water a day depending on the temperature and humiditiy of the environment used.

An elastic cotton band can be wrapped around the intake holes in the hat in order to filter the air entering the hat.

The miniature compressor selected weighs about .125 pounds and costs $50. The entire weight of the hat is estimated at just under a half pound, plus the weight of the water that is permitted to collect. The entire cost of the hat in quantity should therefore come in at around $100 and last for 10 years or more.

Ideally, it would be marketted to campers and hikers at around $500 each. Every time someone purchases a hat, another hat will be donated to someone in an area that does not have enough fresh water to sustain its population.

Thank you for your consideration.

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  • ABOUT THE ENTRANT

  • Name:
    Frederick Burke
  • Type of entry:
    individual
  • Profession:
    Engineer/Designer
  • Number of times previously entering contest:
    3
  • Frederick's favorite design and analysis tools:
    Pro/Engineer, Mechanica
  • For managing CAD data Frederick's company uses:
    PTC Pro/INTRALINK
  • Frederick's hobbies and activities:
    Computers, investing
  • Frederick belongs to these online communities:
    PTC/USER
  • Frederick is inspired by:
    Flexibility, anticipating future needs, optimizing weight / strength / ease of use. Break a problem down into as few variables as possible and the design can be automated.
  • Software used for this entry:
    Pro/Engineer
  • Patent status:
    none