MakeShift 04: Matthew Sparks’s Most Plausible Winning Entry
by William Lidwell
March 16, 2006
Matthew applied an ancient pumping solution and some basic calculations to win the MakeShift Master – Plausible award. The DEKA team comments: “Mr. Sparks proposes using a shaduf, an ancient Egyptian device that consists of a counter-weighted lever and a bi-stable water bucket. Although this is by no means an original idea (indeed it is many thousands of years old), his personal experience living in Egypt and his detailed description and calculations made it quite plausible. Although we also liked his description of a makeshift Archimedes screw, we felt that figuring out a way of applying donkey power to the shaduf would have made a better long-term solution.” Congratulations, Matthew!
