How can I get one? I need this for my teenager.

With young folks like Elizabeth around, maybe there's some hope for the species after all :). Great stuff!

In the shower, I use a Bucket. I like my bucket. So do the plants in the patio after the bucket is full. Mr. Walrus can't have mah bucket!

I love it when kids invent things that are so completely ingenious that no adult would ever think of it. I think the younger you are, the more black and white the world seems. Things are generally uncomplicated, and solutions come easily to their creative minds.

If every household were equipped with one of these water monitoring devices, we'd be more aware and more engaged in the conservation of our water resources.

Way to go, Elizabeth! Keep up the good work!

I love to read about ideas that use innovation to enhance sustainabiliy. People often sense that a tension exists between innovation and sustainability, because the most intuitive way to innovate is by adding, by offering more. Almost always, this entails more resources, higher emissions, a bigger battery, and consequently - less sustainability. .But could there be an approach to innovation that is naturally conducive to sustainability?

Progress has taken us to the quarter turn faucet valve which easily allows you to turn on the faucet full blast. Let's go back to the old gate valve where it took several turns of the handle to do the same!

You and I might be conscience of the quarter turn but most people are not and opt for full flow.

I like the idea, for helping teach both kids and adults.

I wonder how my parents would react if their shower beeped at them every 12 seconds or so...

That is a novel idea--I'm sure that the vast majority of people don't have any clear conception of the quantity of water pouring through their faucets on a daily basis--there's no easy mental way to gauge the volume of water, given that pressure can vary from building to building and street to street in a city, not to mention the vagaries of different faucets.

However, I'm assuming that the beeping and flashing light would be battery powered? Wouldn't this promote resource consumption of another fashion, in a small, insidious way? Why not make the device run off the pressure of the water rushing through it, like an odometer powered by the movement of a wheel? Instead of an electronic device that beeps, it could be a water-pressure device that rings a bell.

Just my two cents.

I'm happy for the kid, but this isn't so ingenious. Must be a godsend, though, for the kind of people who set their cells to beep every time they use a minute.

It should start at 30 seconds, and get quicker and louder each time! That would reduce water consumption. Maybe a little jolt of electricity too. j/k