Dakota Perry, the Mobile high schooler who created a "bubble curtain" to keep trash out of waterways.Dakota Perry

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Last summer with a little help from her dad, Dakota Perry created a system to collect trash in waterways, using a “bubble curtain” that prevents the trash from moving with the current and pushes it ashore.

Perry, a rising junior at Davidson High School, presented her system at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair in Atlanta in May. She received a Judges’ Award from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for her project. Here, she discusses how she came up with the project and why she thinks it’s important.

Questions and answers have been edited and condensed for clarity.

How did this project come about?

There’s a creek behind my dad’s house, and I used to go back there a lot. And I started realizing just how much trash was back there. So I was like, ‘Alright, what can I do that will help this area? What can I do that can get the trash out of the water?’ After a bit of research, I found the “Great Bubble Barrier,” that’s in Amsterdam. It’s the same concept as the bubble curtain that moves the trash into a capture area, but how they’re running the bubble system is with things that would cause air pollution. Because of that, I wanted to figure out if there was a way that I could use different resources to make it environmentally friendly. So, that’s how I came up with what I was going to do for my project.

How did you make it environmentally friendly?

Instead of having things run with electricity that you would have to plug in or power with batteries or run with oil or things like that, I used a waterwheel. With waterwheels, you can connect a type of pulley to it. The type of air compressor that I was using, or planning on using, is run with a motor. So if you connect a pulley to the waterwheel and to that motor, it would turn the motor, which would make the air compressor work.

How did it feel, when you were able to put the device together and get it to work for the first time?

It felt good. I had a feeling that it would work simply because of the fact that there’s a bubble barrier that works in Amsterdam, so I knew the concept would work. But it felt really relieving to actually figure out the numbers that you needed to know in order for it to work.

Why is this project so important to you?

I guess it’s just because of the fact that I’d like to see my area cleaned up more, see less trash in waterways. Because I know it’s not just the area around my dad’s house. At my mom’s house, who lives further down south, we have a river right behind our house, and I go on boat rides a lot and see trash everywhere. So, I know it’s not just one area, it’s everywhere. And I would really like that to get cleaned up, in all honesty. It takes away from the landscape. If you went out on a cruise or something to enjoy the nature and you see a whole bunch of trash, it’s not going to be really appealing.

What do you have planned for the future?

I honestly don’t really know, I’m not one to think really far ahead into the future. I mainly just kind of go with the flow and do what’s happening in the present. Of course, I plan ahead for different things, it’s just, I try and go with the flow much more. So, I don’t really have anything too planned. I’m definitely thinking about doing the science fair again, and working on a different section of my project, of the whole bubble system thing.

Margaret Kates reports from Mobile for The Lede.

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