Hasta La Gadget!

The United States National Laboratory Of Water Drinking And Health (not a real laboratory) recommends that all humans drink lots of water all the time. That’s why H2O-Pal exists – it’s a water bottle that tells you how much you’ve drunk and, more important, when you’ve reached the daily goal of two to five gallons (warning: you could probably drink less) needed to stay alive.

The system uses a scale and accelerometer to see how much water you drink during the day. You fill the bottle, snap on the electronics, and hit the town. You can pull the puck-like device off of the bottle for washing. It then connects to your iPhone via Bluetooth to report your drinking habits.

They are asking for $95,000 on Kickstarter with devices starting at $59. They will sell for $69 when H2O-Pal launches in February. The Ljubljana-based company showed me prototypes of the system last summer and I was duly impressed. Anything that can ensure that we liquid-based lifeforms maintain our juiciness is A-OK in my book.

It turns out the myriad of benches dotting parks and green spaces can be doing so much more than just providing a place to sit or dispose of your gum. MARS Architects—a Shanghai-based firm—designed these wonderful bench alternatives that look like upholstered chesterfield couches, but are actually reservoirs for collecting rain that can later be used to water plants.

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Contrary to what you may have seen in such movies as Pixar’s otherwise extremely entertaining Finding Nemo, whales don’t spray water out of their blowholes. Further, the whale’s trachea doesn’t connect to the esophagus of the whale; so when Dory and Marlin went down the whale’s throat, in real life, they’d have simply been eaten.

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Some people put out pails and bins to collect rainwater when it rains. Others, like the folks of MARS architects, put out benches. They’re very different objects, but they serve the same purpose: to collect rainwater which will be used to water plants, wash cars, hose down driveways, and so on and so forth.

So you might be wondering, how does a bench collect rainwater? Well, it’s all in the cushions. The bench MARS came up with features grooves and seams that direct the water into inlet buttons. The collected water is stored in an underground tank and in the aboveground tank (which is, essentially, the bench.)

The benches are available in three capacities: 500 liters, 1,000 liters, and 1,800 liters, each of which is recommended for certain locations to maximize their usefulness.

The smallest unit does not even require any ground work, and is best equipped for roadside installation; the medium size includes an underground tank and is well-suited for gardens and greenhouses; and the largest one is appropriate for public parks and playgrounds.

The bench came to be after MARS was commissioned by the BMW guggenheim lab to join in on the think tank’s vision to come up with innovations that would benefit cities and urban environments.

[via designboom via Likecool]

You think of water and fire as opposites, but it doesn’t have to be that way. If you’re clever enough about it, they’ll get along together just fine. And there’s just always something so paradoxically cool about starting a fire with H2O.

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