Grand Canyon University’s Capstone team earns a 2026 KAIZEN™ Award Nomination
Four engineering seniors designed a gravity-fed water filtration system for rural communities in Costa Rica, built from local materials, maintained without specialists, and powered entirely by the sun
Access to clean water is not a given in every community. In rural Costa Rica, distance, cost, and the availability of spare parts make most filtration systems impractical. The GCU Capstone team set out to change that, not with an off-the-shelf solution, but with one built from what’s already there.
The project
Luke Brenden, Corbin Horvath, Thomas Higgie, and Andrew Jewell, engineering seniors at Grand Canyon University, designed a UV Gravity-Fed Water Filtration System as their Capstone project. The system combines a five-stage filtration process (mesh, sediment, ceramic, carbon, and UV) with a solar-powered battery unit, eliminating the need for mains electricity or external power sources.
Every component was selected with local maintainability in mind. Filters can be sourced and replaced by hand in rural areas, without specialist tools or supply chains. The result: a system that works where most don’t and keeps working after the engineers leave.
5-stage filtration process
Solar-powered no mains electricity needed
0 coliforms detected in full system test
The nomination
As part of our university partnership with Grand Canyon University, Kaizen Institute launched a challenge inviting engineering students to develop and present a real-world project grounded in continuous improvement principles. The GCU Capstone team was the first to complete it.
Their project earned a 2026 KAIZEN™ Award Nomination, North America recognizing not just what they built, but how they built it: iteratively, sustainably, and with the end user at the center.
“We truly appreciate the opportunity to showcase our work and are grateful for your support throughout the process.”
— Luke Brenden, on behalf of the GCU Capstone team
What’s next
This partnership is the beginning of a broader initiative to bring continuous improvement thinking into engineering education.
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