Team Aquador
What We Do
Team Aquador addresses water safety and accessibility issues in economically and environmentally disadvantaged rural Ecuadorian communities. We design, build, and deliver sustainable water access and purification solutions that our target communities can replicate and maintain. Our projects use recycled, discarded, regionally accessible materials. We actively collaborate with our community partners in La Bolivarense as we design innovative solutions to alleviate resource inequality and empower our partner communities.
Each year, we send a group of students to our partner communities in Ecuador to implement new solutions, review impacts of ongoing projects, conduct needs assessments, and begin new water accessibility initiatives. We were unable to travel in 2023 and 2024 due to limited member availability, but hope to resume travel in 2025!
Who We Are
Team Aquador brings together University of Michigan students to create sustainable, responsible, and empowering water accessibility solutions for Ecuadorian communities. In Ecuador, many communities, especially in rural areas, depend on bottled or corporate-controlled water for drinking and household use; those who cannot afford drink unfiltered, often polluted, water. This lack of access to clean water leads to the spread of disease and perpetuates economic disadvantages.
Our student organization is officially affiliated with the University of Michigan College of Engineering.
Team Aquador is nested under the Multidisciplinary Design Program (MDP) at the University of Michigan.Â
Objectives
We aim to improve community water systems in rural Ecuador using sustainable design principles. Our designs:
are low-cost
are environmentally responsible
empower and promote independence in our partner communities
are culturally appropriate
are sustainable and long-lasting
We will meet these goals by partnering and working closely with the communities we intend to help. Through these partnerships, we can create sustainable designs that are well suited to their users, and we can empower community members to take charge of their water systems.
How We Work
We work out of the Prototyping Lab run by the Center for Socially Engaged Design (C-SED).
The team is segmented into two major sub-teams:
Business Team:
raises funds
organizes data and metrics
promotes the team within the Michigan community
Design Team:
works with the community to determine what type of system will best serve community members
keeps costs down in order to ensure that community members can afford the system
ensures that designs are simple enough to be replicated and maintained by community members
communicates with community partners to ensure that the designed system is culturally appropriate and will be used
prototypes and tests designs