♪ ♪ (water running) I'm Nate from Design Squad, and my kids, Calvin and Leo, love to play with water.

(water running) The trouble is they like to play with water indoors, which wastes water and it splashes water all around the house.

It's soaked.

♪ ♪ NATE: I want to invent some kind of backyard water play setup.

It'll keep the splashing outside and not waste any water.

I'm going to recirculate water through the system using a pump.

This is a ramp I made for cars for the kids to play with.

It reminded me of an aqueduct, which is a way to transport water from one place to another above ground.

People have been using aqueducts for thousands of years.

The Romans were famous for building them and, in fact, there's still a lot of intact aqueducts all throughout Italy.

I thought it would be fun for the kids have their own aqueduct setup to play with in the backyard.

♪ ♪ I'm going to try to build a modular setup.

That means you can interchange the parts in lots of different ways that work well together.

Here's the materials I'm going to use.

Wherever possible, I wanted to reuse and repurpose things.

I'm going to use thick tree branches for the stands, recycled wood pieces for the aqueduct sections, and part of an old barrel to collect the water.

I got some old barrels that have been cut in half.

I want to make sure it doesn't leak, so I'm adding some sealant on all the cracks.

♪ ♪ Next, I'll build the stands that will hold up the aqueduct sections.

So, I can use some big screws to attach this base to this branch.

(drill whirring) But then at the top, I need some way to securely attach the aqueduct section.

So I have an idea for kind of a perch, and then have some forks plates that just latch onto it.

All right, stand number one is complete.

I'm going to make maybe three or four more of these, and each one will be a bit shorter.

So when they set up all the aqueducts, the water will flow downhill into the barrel.

Aqueduct tower number five.

Cool.

These are going to become little fork plates to attach the aqueducts on in a pretty secure way.

♪ ♪ (saw buzzing) (drill whirring) The aqueduct will sit on top of this and it will stay pretty well supported.

(Nate chuckles) It turns out that I need to make end caps.

I'm using a piece of leftover tree branch.

Excellent, now I have hard stops on the ends so the aqueducts can't get slid off.

Next, I'll build the aqueduct sections.

These are some cedar boards from a fence that I took down.

It's a great way to repurpose those old building materials, although it does have a lot of splinters, so I'm going to want to sand it before the kids put their hands all over it way better.

(sander whirring) ♪ ♪ (puffs air) That is way better.

I'm thinking that for the bottom one, I'm going to make it into more of a table, so I've got a little more open space.

(drill whirring) ♪ ♪ Great.

Hey, that's not too bad.

A little wobbly, but I like it.

♪ ♪ I'm thinking in the middle section would be fun to have as a tunnel because it's fun to see the water go in, disappear, and then come back out the other side.

It's more like a covered bridge.

♪ ♪ (laughing): Whoa!

It's a little bit rickety, but not bad.

We can pivot things and we can scoot these back and forth, and we can rotate them, and so there's adjustability built in.

♪ ♪ So now we're at the last section, and I think for that section I'm going to use the car ramp that inspired the idea in the first place.

♪ ♪ This is going to be fun.

(Calvin and Leo chattering) Yay!

Whoo-whoo-whoo!

NATE: Are you ready for it to turn on?

♪ ♪ Yay!

It's going!

(kids chattering) I think they like it.

CHILD: Yay!

NATE: Here's the pump.

I've got a clear hose running from the barrel tank all the way up to the top, recirculating the water.

All the power for our play station is coming from the sun.

CHILD: Three, two, one... NATE: Because it's modular, we can rearrange it for a different setup.

This way they can put stuff down the trough easier.

It is so fun to invent things.

You get the fun of solving little problems along the way.

You get the fun of solving the big problem that you set out to solve in the first place.

CALVIN: Leo, you want your truck to go down?

- Yeah.

- Then let go.

NATE: And then there's the fun surprise part where the invention actually goes into use.

And almost every time, some new use for the invention comes up that you didn't even think of in the first place.

Yay!

NATE: Immediately, a person using the invention thinks up something new.

(muttering to self) Over... Hey, Calvin, how's this?

Yes!

NATE: Nobody's ever built a solar-powered, branch-supported backyard aqueduct spillway with recycled materials before.

But now there's one right here.

And look how much fun it is.

Yay!

Fun!

You made it, Daddy!

- Do you like it?

- Yeah!