Two Engineering students designed and built a pump to lift water up a cliff.

Why push water uphill? At the top of the 7m cliff was a pond which needed a constant supply of water for irrigation of an orchard on the West Coast. The site was remote, with no access to electricity, but a steady supply of water in the stream at the bottom of the cliff.

Pat Wall and Alan Hemmings designed and built a hydraulic ram pump to solve this problem. A ram pump uses the energy of a large volume of water to propel a smaller volume to a much higher head - up to 7 to 10 times higher. There is no electricity required, just water and gravity. Pat's and Alan's prototype was made of steel and brass for durability. It was designed to be easy to set up, reliable, and require little maintenance.