Connections: clean water and playground laughter

Clean water. It is the key for public health and for fighting infectious disease. The question for some parts of the world with few resources is how to get it out of the ground. PlayPumps is a non-profit that has connected the sounds of playground laughter with groundwater to change villages in Sub-Saharan Africa. From their site:

It’s a simple idea. As children spin on a merry-go-round, water pumps from below the ground.  It is stored in a tank just a few feet away, making a safe, plentiful supply of water available in the community.

Nearly 700 PlayPumps have been installed in South Africa, providing safe water to a million people living in rural communities. Thousands more PlayPumps will be installed throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, bringing the many benefits of ready access to clean drinking water to millions of underserved people.

Intersectional innovations like this one may have plenty of applicability in other areas – children after all have tremendous amount of energy … are there other ways to tap it?