Teens' flood-prevention idea wins national contest

Three teens from Naperville Unit District 203 who created a solution to basement flooding are now national winners in a science, technology, engineering and math competition sponsored by the U.S. Army.

Adarsh Mattu, Prateek Dullur and Aditya Ramachandran were honored for building an electricity-free device that helps prevent basements from filling with water - even when power goes out or sump pumps fail.

The students received their first-place award for the eighth-grade division Friday, June 19, from the Army's eCYBERMISSION competition, which encourages students to develop solutions to real challenges in their communities.

Categories in the competition are all based on STEM, or science, technology, engineering and math. Students could develop projects in alternative energy sources, food, robotics, the environment, health and fitness, force and motion or natural security and safety.

Adarsh, who just completed eighth grade at Kennedy Junior High in Lisle, said one problem he and his teammates observed in Naperville had to do with water and the tendency for low-lying areas to get inundated with the wet stuff after heavy rains.

"Some of our friends and family had their basements flooded and we saw that it was a very common problem in Naperville," Adarsh said. "We just decided we should do something about it."

They ended up forming a team called HydroPhysics and creating an absorbent device that homeowners can put on top of their sump pump to suck in excess water when the pump fails, Adarsh said. It took three prototypes to come up with the final version that impressed judges - including Army scientists and engineers, educators and STEM professionals - enough to come in first place in the nation.

Testing different theories and materials was part of the fun of meeting for two hours every weekend to develop the flood-prevention contraption.

"I really enjoyed the experimentation and building. That was probably the most fun," Adarsh said. "Sometimes we got off-track and we would sometimes goof off, but then we would get back on track and continue our experimentation."

PVC piping wasn't the most effective material for the job and a cylinder wasn't as functional of a shape as a funnel, the team learned before settling on a final product.

The design is a two-chambered, funnel-shaped container made of acrylic material. Inside are two super-absorbent polymers, which can suck in enough water to hold 300 times their mass. The polymers are separated by a mesh that divides the device into two chambers and prevents it from getting clogged, Adarsh said.

"When the sump pump fails, when the water comes in through the basement, it enters the inner tube, then goes into the chambers," he said.

The Naperville students' creation was one of 7,000 entrants in the contest for sixth- through ninth-graders. They won the Illinois state contest and a regional contest to become one of 20 national finalists, with each student claiming savings bonds totaling $4,000 along the way.

"It's exciting to see students thinking beyond the science classroom, connecting what they have learned in school to practical applications while actively engaging their community to make a real difference in the world around them," David Evans, director of the National Science Teachers Association, which administered the contest, said in a news release.

The eighth-grade winners are no strangers to entering STEM competitions, having competed in eCYBERMISSION's sixth- and seventh-grade divisions the past two years with projects related to genetically modified food and energy conservation. But this year's flood prevention project brought a greater degree of success - first place and an additional $5,000 savings bond.

Now, it's on to high school for the HydroPhysics teammates, who are considering the future of their flood-prevention device as a product or a business venture.

"We really feel a need to follow through with what we've done," said Adarsh, who's interested in studying mechanical engineering after high school. "We might file a patent for it or maybe commercialize it."