science

Roundabout PlayPump

Roundabout PlayPump is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Roundabout PlayPump rather than just read about it. In short: The Roundabout PlayPump is a system that uses the energy created by children playing to operate a water pump. It is manufactured by the South African company Roundabout Outdoor.

Key takeaways

Roundabout PlayPump belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Roundabout PlayPump to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Roundabout PlayPump from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Roundabout PlayPump is a system that uses the energy created by children playing to operate a water pump. It is manufactured by the South African company Roundabout Outdoor. It operates in a similar way to a windmill-driven water pump. The PlayPump received heavy publicity and funding when first introduced, but has since been criticized for being too expensive, too complex to maintain or repair in low-resource settings, too reliant on child labor, and overall less effective than traditional handpumps. WaterAid, one of the biggest water charities in the world, opposes the PlayPump for these reasons.

Design The PlayPump water system is a playground merry-go-round attached to a water pump. The spinning motion pumps underground water into a 2,500-liter tank raised seven meters above ground. The water in the tank is easily dispensed by a tap valve. According to the manufacturer the pump can raise up to 1400 liters of water per hour from a depth of 40 meters. Excess water is diverted below ground again. The storage tank has a four-sided advertising panel. Two sides are used to advertise products, thereby providing money for maintenance of the pump, and the other two sides are devoted to public health messages about topics like HIV/AIDS prevention.

History The PlayPump was invented in South Africa by Ronnie Stuiver, a borehole driller and engineer, who exhibited it at an agricultural fair in 1989. Trevor Field, an agricultural executive, saw the device at the fair and licensed it from Stuiver. Field installed the first two systems in KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa in 1994, and began receiving media attention in 1999, when Nelson Mandela attended the opening of a school which had a PlayPump. In 2000, PlayPump received the World Bank Development Marketplace Award, and it became internationally prominent following a 2005 PBS Frontline report in 2005. At a 2006 Clinton Global Initiative ceremony, donors pledged $16.4 million to install more PlayPumps.

By 2008, 1,000 PlayPumps had been installed, and Field set a goal of installing 4,000 by 2010. However, in 2009 PlayPumps International turned its inventory of uninstalled PlayPumps over to Water For People, and stopped installing new PlayPumps in order to focus on maintenance of existing ones.

Effectiveness The Guardian calculated in 2009 that children would have to "play" for 27 hours every day to meet PlayPumps' stated targets of providing 2,500 people per pump with their daily water needs. In June 2010, PBS's Frontline/World aired an update about the failure of PlayPumps, particularly in Mozambique. Many older women, who were not consulted prior to the installation of the PlayPumps, found operating them to be difficult, especially when there were few children around. PlayPumps were also breaking down, with no way for villagers to make the expensive necessary repairs. A comprehensive report about these failures was released by UNICEF in 2007.

See also Empower Playgrounds Blood: Water Mission Water privatisation in South Africa Water scarcity in Africa

References

External links Roundabout Water Solutions One Water — official One Water site "Why pumping water is child's play" (2005-04-25) - BBC News article "The Play Pump: Turning water into child's play" (2004-10-24) - article with streaming video African Well Fund

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Roundabout PlayPump

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Roundabout PlayPump claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Roundabout PlayPump before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Roundabout PlayPump ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Roundabout PlayPump

In research: Roundabout PlayPump appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Roundabout PlayPump in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Roundabout PlayPump is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Human power, Pumps, Water supply, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Roundabout PlayPump outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Roundabout PlayPump in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Roundabout PlayPump means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Roundabout PlayPump out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Roundabout PlayPump in simple terms?

The Roundabout PlayPump is a system that uses the energy created by children playing to operate a water pump. It is manufactured by the South African company Roundabout Outdoor.

Why does Roundabout PlayPump matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Roundabout PlayPump?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Roundabout PlayPump.