The decentralised water project research assistants have taken part in their first RA-day of the project on the 29th of April, taking place within the University of Glasgow.

The purpose of these days is to encourage and promote cross discipline discussion, team building and some light-hearted fun. The day started with a general overview/quick summary of the project and an introduction to the two newest members of the team Baptiste and Xiang. Baptiste will be joining Cindy’s team and Xiang joining Marta’s research group. Both are working on the optimization of bio-filters used in drinking water treatment.

The introduction was preceded by a presentation from Rohit on his work so far on the carbon and water footprint of one of our partner islands, Barra. The group then took part in several discussion sessions around community engagement, including the kind of RA lead activities we may wish to try. A school-based activity seemed to be the favourite.

In order to break up the different sessions we introduced team building activities, and the classic tallest tower team building challenge.The contest was hard fought but there was an outright winner by a margin of 60mm by the team of Laurie, Tania, Zahra and Xiang. We completely forgot to buy any prizes, so the winners received a heart-felt “well done” and a round of applause.Finally, to round off the day we all went for a well-deserved group lunch with the next RA-day already in planning.