Failures For Thought

The plan we presented to the class consisted of a water wheel to pick up water from the fish pond and bring it to the plants.  The water draining from the pond would go back into the fish pond and create the current to push the water wheel.....The more I think about this plan, the more I seem to find reasons for it to not work.  Iʻm not trying to a "negative nancy" but I have come up with a few speculations as to why our design will need some major tweaking.  The first problem is that if we were to in fact use the water wheel, then only the surface water of the fish pond would be taken up to the grow bed.  The whole purpose of aquaponics is to use the fish waste, which sinks to the bottom, to fertilize the plants.  The second problem is that we would probably need a motor to turn the water wheel because it would hard to created a current strong enough to turn the wheel.  Our main goal is to not use a pump or motor for this project.  The third problem is that the water wheel would create a continuos dumping of water on the leaf lettuce.  This would thusly erode the soil, expose the roots, and the plant would not grow very well.  We would not be able to control the amount of water the leaf lettuce needs, which would most likely result in the plants dying.  After all of this criticism on our project, I would like to end on a lighter note.  Even though we have many vital problems to address in our design, there are still millions of possibilities for us to try.  As Mr. Blake told us today, "Thomas Edison found 99 ways to not make a light bulb." So the task at hand is to put a little more creativity and keep experimenting with out design.  We can only learn from our failures.

"If I find 10,000 ways something won't work, I haven't failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward" - Thomas Edison 

Sources: http://vocalminority.typepad.com
http://answers.yahoo.com