Hey Blair,
Thanks for your great questions! We’ve answered them below in the same order as asked.
1) For the purpose of the Challenge, your main stakeholders will be EWB and your tutors/university academics. In terms of stakeholders for your proposed project, CfAT is the main stakeholder to consider. There will likely be additional stakeholders, and as your design proposal progresses, these will become clearer; you can think about who are the end users of your design, who might be impacted by it, what permissions you might need etc to identify who your stakeholders could be.
2) In terms of budget; We address this question in the FAQs document, linked at the top of the forum page.
You should be not necessarily be thinking about keeping costs as low as possible, but rather on what is a reasonable and appropriate cost for the project where a balance of efficacy and efficiency can be reached under the constraints of the context on the Peninsula.
This will of course depend on your project design, but it’s important to keep in mind the conditions of Cape York regarding remoteness and resilience of the design. If your design utilises the cheapest options but breaks down in a short time frame, then that is not necessarily the most appropriate choice.
3) Great to see that you’re thinking about using local materials! Materials such as bush timber are readily available in the region, but beyond this, there is limited access to the kinds of materials that would be suitable for a water project. Other manufactured materials may need to be transported from larger towns and cities near the Cape.
4) Again, great to see the prioritisation of local labour in your design choices. Often there are local community members who have trades skills such as carpentry, metal work and construction, however more technical skillsets such as engineering may need to be contracted from larger centres, such as Cairns or Townsville. In terms of maintenance, again community members may possess trades skills, however, you would need to consider how you communicate your design in a way that enables the community to maintain the system, or whether your design would require specific and narrow skillsets to perform any maintenance or repairs.
Please feel free to reach out with any further questions!
Challenge Team
Luke Barbagallo