Alison Drennan and Timothy Holt
SANDY — It turns out you can save water if you are reminded to do it.
A group of Sandy middle schoolers created an app to track water usage, and they say it leads to big savings.
They are on a First Lego League Robotics Team called “Bionic Porcupines iii,” and they worked with Sandy City and its consumer portal, Aquahawk, with a group of residents to track.
Beehive Science and Technology Academy 7th graders Alison Drennan and Timothy Holt explained to judges Thursday at the state science and engineering fair how the concept works.
“We looked at whether if they knew their water usage, and they were being reminded, that they would actually save water,” said Alison.
And it worked.
“You could see that they saved roughly double” over a year before, said Timothy.
Some learned about water conservation, some tracked their water usage, and some were reminded through texts, notifications and phone calls. That last group saw the most water savings.
“There’s an education aspect where you can learn how to improve your own usage, there’s an aspect where you can commit to improve your usage, and you can feel good about doing it,” said their teammate Eric Snaufer, a 7th grader at Midvale Middle School.
Eric said you could also donate your savings to charity.
Aquahawk and Orbitz sprinklers are partnering with them to get the app more widespread use.
This is the same team that we did a story with last August, when they invented an air scare device to prevent bird strikes at the airport. You can read that story here.
