Mechanical Engineering · Fluid Systems
Build a model of a gear pump or centrifugal pump
Make a small centrifugal pump from a motor and a bottle cap and measure its flow at different heights.
- DifficultyIntermediate
- Estimated time1–2 weeks
- Budget₹500–₹1,000
- ClassClass 10 to college
- Team2–3 people
- You needWorkshop tools
Prerequisites: None beyond your class work
Original · by TechnifyedEngineering DesignWorking ModelHardware
Overview
Make a small centrifugal pump from a motor and a bottle cap and measure its flow at different heights.
Skills you will use
Safety
- Use only batteries or a low-voltage supply (12 V or less). Never connect a project to a wall socket.
- Take care near rivers, ponds and tanks: go with others and collect samples from a safe bank.
Materials and tools
- Small DC motor
- Bottle cap and plastic for the impeller
- Tubing
- Container
- Battery
- Measuring cup
- Stopwatch
Step-by-step roadmap
Start
You will finish with: a working pump and its performance curve.
- 1
Prerequisites
Nothing special to know first. Then collect the 7 items in the materials list.
- 2
Learn
Read up on fluid systems: flow rate, impeller, pump. Your textbook chapter and one short video are enough.
- 3
Plan
Sketch the design, list every part with its price and decide how you will know it works.
- 4
Build
- Cut impeller blades and fix them on the motor shaft.
- Build a casing with an inlet at the centre and an outlet at the edge.
- Seal the shaft and prime the pump.
- Measure flow per minute at three lifting heights.
- Plot flow against height.
- 5
Test
Run it ten times in a row. Note every failure, fix the cause and test again.
- 6
Document
Photograph each build stage, keep the circuit or drawing, and note what failed and how you fixed it. Report structure
- 7
Present
Demonstrate it working first, then explain how it works and what you would improve. Presentation structure
- 8
Publish
Share a short video, the parts list and the drawing or code so someone else can build it.
Expected outcome
A working pump and its performance curve.
Other versions of this project
Advanced version
Compare straight and curved blades.
Science fair mode
Text marked "You write this" is a prompt for your own work; everything else is specific to this project.
- Problem
- You write thisWrite your question as: How does [what you change] affect [what you measure]?
- Hypothesis
- You write thisWrite it as: If [I change this], then [this will happen], because [reason].
- Variables
- You write thisName the one thing you change (independent), the thing you measure (dependent) and what you keep the same (controlled).
Materials and procedure are in Materials and the Roadmap.
Observation table
You write thisDraw a table with one column for what you change, one for each repeat reading and one for the average.
- Graph
- You write thisPlot what you changed along the bottom and what you measured up the side; use a bar chart for categories and a line graph for numbers.
- Results
- You write thisState what the graph shows in one or two sentences, with numbers.
- Conclusion
- You write thisSay whether the result supports your hypothesis and why you think so.
Display board
- Title and your name
- Question
- Hypothesis
- Materials
- Procedure (with photos)
- Data table and graph
- Conclusion
- What you would do next
Questions judges ask
- What would you change if you did this again?
- What was your biggest source of error, and how did you reduce it?
- Where is this idea used in real life?
Working as a team
2–3 people. Suggested roles:
Report and presentation
Report structure
- Title and aim
- The problem it solves
- How it works (principle)
- Parts list with cost
- Design: drawing, circuit or block diagram
- Build steps
- Testing and results
- Problems faced and fixes
- Limitations
- Future improvements
- References
Presentation structure
- The problem
- The idea
- How it works (one diagram)
- Parts and cost
- The build (photos)
- Live demo or video
- Test results
- What did not work
- Next version
Viva questions
Prepare your own answers to these before you present.
- What is the aim of your project, in one sentence?
- What is the principle behind it?
- Why did you choose these materials or tools?
- What result did you get, and was it what you expected?
- What went wrong and how did you fix it?
- How could this be improved or used in real life?
Resources
Source and attribution
Original
Written by Technifyed. Free to use for your own school or college project; write the report in your own words. Added 1 Oct 2026.
Similar projects
More Mechanical Engineering projects
Mechanical Engineering · Fluid Systems
Design a hydraulic arm from syringes
Build a three-joint arm moved by water-filled syringes that picks up and places an object.
Mechanical Engineering · Machines
Design a gearbox and measure its speed ratios
Build a two-stage gear train and check the measured ratio against the tooth counts.
Mechanical Engineering + Robotics, IoT and Hardware
Design a compliant gripper for delicate objects
Design, print and test a flexible gripper that can pick up an egg without breaking it.
Mechanical Engineering + Environmental Science
Build a solar water heater
Make a flat-plate collector from black tubing and measure how much heat it captures.
Two-subject alternatives
Entrepreneurship + Mechanical Engineering
Design a business around a science fair invention
Take a working model you have built and work out who would buy it, at what price and at what cost.
Robotics, IoT and Hardware + Mechanical Engineering
Design a mechanical part in CAD and simulate its stress
Model a bracket, apply a load in simulation and redesign it to be lighter and still strong.
Chemical Engineering + Mechanical Engineering
Study heat exchanger effectiveness
Build a tube-in-tube heat exchanger and compare parallel and counter flow.
Same difficulty and budget
Aerospace Engineering + Physics
Make a model wind tunnel and test shapes
Build a small wind tunnel from a fan and straws and compare the drag of different shapes.
Aerospace Engineering + Astronomy and Space
Simulate a satellite orbit
Integrate Newton's law of gravity to draw circular, elliptical and escape orbits.
Industrial and Manufacturing + Operations, HR and Supply Chain
Analyse and reduce waiting time at the canteen
Time each step of the canteen queue, find the bottleneck and test one improvement.
Electronics and Communication + Data
Filter noise from an audio recording
Record speech with a hum, find the hum's frequency and remove it with a digital filter.