Watch the Water, Watch the World

Turkey often undergoes water scarcity. To tackle such a problem and bring the issue to light, a team of university students at Turkey's Samsung Innovation Campus joined forces to commence their “3W Watch Water & World” project.

3W Watch Water & World's teammates are all engineers but each with unique specialties. Aslı and Oğuzhan are from Boğaziçi University, a major in computer engineering and electrical and electronics engineering respectively. Mert from Doğuş University is a software expert, and Bilge from Marmara University has studied robotics and automation.

The main objective of 3W Watch Water & World was to encourage the careful use of water against the depletion of water resources. Learning that 11% of the water used in Turkey is household-field sourced, the team created a system that gamifies household water consumption and includes a smart water meter card.

“Thanks to Samsung Innovation Campus, we acquired a lot of information about Internet of Things (IoT) and put it into real use,” said Aslı. Bilge added, “Our intellectual growth in this field was noticeable. Most importantly we could see ourselves quickly prototype a completely new IoT project.”

To measure the amount of water used in houses, water quality, and the leakage in places like kitchens and bathrooms, two designs were built. The team developed a Hydra design that can replace the meters in the house for invoice measurement and a Kraken device that can be installed in the kitchen, bathroom, and garden to collect water usage. The team also opened a special server where the user can view the collected data including water meter information, invoice screening, payment, logs, and more. The server also advises users with optimized water consumption plans. If fully equipped in households, the 3W Watch Water & World can motivate users to spend less and save more.

The four students’ time with Samsung Innovation Campus sparked their passion as innovators that bring positive changes to the world.

“Building in-depth IoT knowledge and having a hands-on experience is one thing. What moved us, even more, was the teamwork we shared and how we have become aware of the problems of our planet,” said Mert and Oğuzhan.