Sitting in SC 200 one day, I was exhausted, hungry, and hot. I had refilled my water bottle downtown at Irvings with a lot of ice in an attempt to cool myself down. While sitting in class drinking my ice cold water, the condensation on the outside of my water bottle was dripping everywhere. All over my notebook, my clothes, and I think I even got some water on my neighbor. My notes in blue ink began to bleed all over my notebook pages. I was already in a bad mood and on top of that, my stuff was soaked. The cold water felt great though, so later on in the day while sitting in my air conditioning, I Googled water bottles that don’t create condensation so I could order an insulated bottle online.
While going through the colors of water bottles and being side tracked a few times by pop ups, an ad came up that really grabbed my attention. It was for a self-filling water bottle that creates drinking water from the air. I was so intrigued by this and I immediately thought of what Andrew had said in class, “With science, nothing is off limits.” I became so curious that I clicked on the ad to see what this water bottle was all about and if something like that was even possible because this idea struck me as very imaginative. I was extremely skeptical about this product though because after all, “We’re damned good at seeing faults in other people” (Andrew).
I first watched the video made about the Fontus self filling water bottle. I wasn’t too convinced considering it seemed as if the whole video was just a man who bikes and runs around aimlessly. When it eventually got to explaining how the bottle works, my skepticism was put on hold.
It looks convincing right? Chris Cassella, CEO & Co-Founder of the Sciencealert website (the website I found this product on) seemed like a credible man that ran a credible website. He even claims himself to be a “science communicator”. Fiona MacDonald (director of content) is an award-winning journalist who I would assume would not release false media onto a scientific based website. But, why haven’t I heard of this product before? This water bottle could be world changing because of the lack of clean water in many underdeveloped nations, so why is it not advertised more? This is when I came to the conclusion that just like Andrew said, science is truly messy and disorderly because I still had no idea if this was real or not.
I resorted to Google once again to see if others had the same reaction to this water bottle as I did. The Fontus website itself was designed well and had a copyright date of 2015 so I began to believe that this is a very new product and maybe it truly works. It is a fairly young company based in Vienna. Their team consists of industrial designers, electrical engineers, and business men and women. I went to check how much they would charge for this water bottle and instead of a listed price, it said the patent was pending. I sighed, wondering if the government would even authorize this product. At this point, I am half skeptic and half hopeful that technology has risen to this level of greatness. Maybe one day we will all be refilling our water bottles in between classes with the sun! What do you think?
Photo: https://www.metabunk.org/fontus-self-filling-water-bottle-indiegogo-scam-campaign.t7495/
Hello Abigail,
Reading your blog I learned a lot of information and didn’t know that there was so many drinking water inventions. I could totally relate to you with my other water bottles before the one I have now it always would drip all other my notebook and papers, and I always wondered what made that happen. After reading your post I have a better understanding of why that is. This ending was very interesting and I am hopeful that maybe one day we will get to do that and fill the water bottle with the sun but for now I went to tell you about a new water bottle that I found called the Swell. This water bottle stays hot for 24 hours and cold for 12, it doesn’t leave that dripping condensation and I love it. To me and some other people that I know who have this kind of water bottle call it magical. If you don’t know about it all ready you should check out the website it talks all about the bottle and gives some information. Here is the link: http://www.swellbottle.com/about-swell-bottle-mission-and-charity/
Hey Abigail!
This post was so interesting…it really is amazing how many clean drinking water inventions exist in our world, but how hard it is to obtain them in countries that could benefit highly from them. Your post actually sparked my interest in learning more about patents… how to obtain them and how long it takes to do so. Hopefully Fontus is on their way to the final stages of the process!
how to obtain them
how long it takes to do so
Abby!
This is so cool! I wish I would have had this at my job over the summer. At the park, there was an old water fountain that didn’t really work. But when it did, the water coming out of it was yellowish and gross. It occurred to me that there isn’t that much fresh water around the world and that children in developing countries drink water like this. This water bottle could really help someone. This mechanism could help spark a way to increase or create more fresh water, which is fairly scarce compared to the world population, for people all over the world
I like the part that you quote Adrew’s words in class 🙂 and thanks for sharing this cool Add and the overall discussions.
I think this is actually a cool idea, which combine science into our common life. But there might also be problems. For example the process of condensation are actually quite slow, so I think we won’t be able to fill the bottle within a short amount of time. Also, some places contain serious problems of air pollution which we might not want to drink the water collected from water molecules through the air.
In general, I still think it is a cool thing, maybe it could safe a lot of water resources in some ways.
Abigail,
What an interesting concept for a water bottle! Although it may be just a convenience for us here in the Western World, this could definitely be a life saver for those in Africa or the poorer nations of the world. Hopefully those in Vienna will see not only the profits this design could make, but also the life-saving qualities, and allow it to be produced. If you haven’t already heard, there’s an invention sort of like this out there. It’s a straw that, while it can’t pull water from the air, can purify any water you drink instantly, no matter how dirty it may be. Watch this video to see. (Link here).
Abigail,
I loved this blog. I think that with science opportunities are endless and our world today is constantly advancing. As I was reading your blog I kept thinking about the other bizarre yet possible inventions are in patent right now in our world. I used google to answer my question and figured that you might want to see what I came across. LINK
Best,
Hannah Mears