Jamaican family has ingenious solution to BP Oil Spill

Posted by Yardie Luke on June 20, 2010 under Famous Jamaicans | Read the First Comment

..as featured on CNN iReport and Fox News 5 Atlanta

Jamaican family living in the United States think they have figured out a way to stop the oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico.

Errold Webb and two of his children, 11-year-old Nathan and 10-year-old Imani, propose that the blown out well can be effectively plugged using the principle of buoyancy, and it took them only two hours, doing what they described as a “fun summer project”, to construct a model demonstrating their idea.

“We came up with what we think is a brilliant idea,” Webb told the Sunday Observer from his home in Atlanta.

On the urging of his wife Nadine, daddy Webb and his two eldest children used a fish tank they had at home, and inexpensive parts sourced from the Dollar store, to build the model.

In a video they posted on public video-sharing website YouTube, the children explained the procedure.

“By using a buoyancy plug we are able to supply sufficient force to plug the leak. The downward force is created by using air filled buoyant containers below the surface of the water connected with a cord which goes around pulleys anchored to the ocean floor which are then connected to the plug.

“Both containers are the same size and an equal distance away from each other, creating equal force and stability,” Nathan said in the three-minute video.

“In our experiment, the plug we used was the tip of a mechanical pencil and we sealed the hole with wax,” Imani added, speaking from a script she and her brother worked on with both their parents.

SOURCE: Jamaica Observer