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Low-tech Inventions That Help Change Lives
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Oct 11, 2007 04:53 PM
from the best-thing-since-the-shoelace dept.
from the best-thing-since-the-shoelace dept.
angelaelle writes "The current issue of Popular Mechanics is featuring their Breakthrough Awards program for inventors. Some of the winning inventions help improve the living conditions for people in third world countries using low-tech materials and assembly methods. Technologies like this cookstove for people in Darfur, and in the case of this Windbelt developed by Shawn Frayne, could be used to provide cheap, clean energy alternatives. The website features fascinating, inspiring videos talking about the inventor's 'eureka moment', focusing on the inventor as well as the technology."
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Drill-style water pump (Score:4, Interesting)
My understanding was that it's a lot better than many of the bucket+rope configurations used with wells.
Re:Drill-style water pump (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Drill-style water pump (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes_screw [wikipedia.org]
The fact that it is named after a dead Greek should tell you how well known the principles of it are.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
It's called an Archimedes' Screw [wikipedia.org]. It has advantages (especially in high-torque applications), but it is not very useful for moving water a long distance. Out of a ditch (a few meters), yes. Out of a *well* (tens of meters), no.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Drill-style water pump (Score:5, Informative)
Um, no.
Archimede's Screw is not a replacement for a rope & bucket. Or at least, not for the sort of deep well seen in many parts of the world where surface water is unavailable or contaminated.
Archimede's Screw requires substantially more run then rise; making it suitable for moving water up and over from a river to a settling pond or canal. Wikipedia has a good explanation of the mathematics; for the casual reader just figure about a 30 degree angle or less.
On the other hand a rope & bucket is all rise and very little run; it just brings water up, on the very close order of 90 degrees.
So they're substantially different sort of devices, and not interchangeable at all. Nor is either particularly new, Archimede's Screw dates back 2,500+ years, the rope and bucket considerably further.
All of that said, I have to note that not knowing about Archimede's Screw is a pretty spectacular gap in a decent education.
The six classes of simple machines - wedge, ramp, screw, lever, wheel & axle, and pulley, are fundamental to how the machanical world works. I'd have hoped this is covered early on in anyone's education, particularly anyone with any sort of interest in 'how the world works'.
If your educational system neglected this material perhaps a note to them detailing this gap, and resulting gaffe, might inspire the current generation of educators to review the curricula and see if that can't fit it in somewhere.
Parent
my favorite.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
(and I remember reading ina kids book when I was little about keeping things cool using a wet terracotta pot - is the pot in a pot really that big a leap?)
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Hexayurts (Score:5, Informative)
http://hexayurt.com/ [hexayurt.com]
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Apparently longer than they spent on their website. Seriously, why does it read as a random gob of sentences about the Hexayurt, yet not answer my basic questions?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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Ghandi+Bucky Fuller+FOSS = interesting stuff!
This is a page with more info on the Hexayurt:
http://www.appropedia.org/Hexayurt_Project [appropedia.org]
#1 invention (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:#1 invention (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Condoms (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
condoms (Score:2)
It shouldn't. It's not something that is made by primitive techniques from low-tech materials. Clay pots are just that, condoms aren't. Unless, of course, you consider polyurithane a low-tech material.
Ah but as with many other things made today condoms used to be made by "primitive" materials. At one tyme condoms were made from rubber, which spawned their nickname, "rubbers". And originally rubber, like plastics, were made from plants. Rubber [wikipedia.org] is the sap of trees, and plastic [wikipedia.org] was made from plant cellul [wikipedia.org]
Chimney starter (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Chimney starter (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Cars are just horseless carriages. The web is just a BBS with better graphics. Heart surgery is just hand surgery with more blood.
Reapplication of existing items and concepts it almost the definition of invention.
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Mousetrap (Score:5, Interesting)
If you have, you will know how brilliant idea the normal mousetrap actually is. It's ridiculously cheap and efficient, and has practically remained the same for almost 100 years. Here is a link to the pantent:
http://inventors.about.com/od/weirdmuseums/ig/History-of-Mousetraps/James-Doubt---Mousetrap-Patent.htm [about.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Mod me off topic, (karma to burn, yadda yadda...) but I thought this crowd would appreciate it...
Appropriate Technology (Score:5, Insightful)
More about Shawn at MIT (Score:2)
even more :More about Shawn at MIT (Score:4, Interesting)
A MacGyver for the Third World
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aidg/612856202/in/set-72157600466239024/ [flickr.com]
flickr
http://instapundit.com/archives2/010388.php [instapundit.com]
instapundit is blogging the conference
http://www.aidg.org/component/option,com_jd-wp/Itemid,34/p,33/ [aidg.org]
some blog
Shawn Frayne is the founder of Haddock Invention LLC and its recent spin-off company, Humdinger Wind Energy, LLC. The mission of these companies is two-fold. First, to create technologies that can address long-standing problems in developing countries; and second, to leverage the novel aspects of those inventions through licensing deals in capital-rich nations such as the U.S., thereby generating a self-supporting revenue stream for the projects.
His work has so far focused in the fields of solar water disinfection, inflatable packaging, food preservation, charcoal-production, and wind power generation, with several products successfully licensed or sold. It was during his time as a student in MIT's D-Lab that Shawn first became convinced that the key inventions of the next century won't necessarily be born in wealthy countries. Rather, the new industries of the coming years will be founded on breakthrough technologies invented in Haiti or Zambia or Guatemala, where the hardest problems in the world will yield the greatest inventions.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
His work has so far focused in the fields of solar water disinfection, inflatable packaging, food preservation, charcoal-production, and wind power generation, with several products successfully licensed or sold. It was during his time as a student in MIT's D-Lab that Shawn first became convinced that the key inventions of the next century won't necessarily be born in wealthy countries. Rather, the new industries of the coming years will be founded on breakthrough technologies invented in Haiti or Zambia or Guatemala, where the hardest problems in the world will yield the greatest inventions.
I disagree with that. The hardest problems remain in the developed world. It's because the problems of the poorer countries have already been solved by the developed world. The inventions above are more ways to help progress to the massive technological infrastructure of the developed world.
Having said that, I could see in the not so distant future, an extremely wealthy, long-lived person or group taking over one of worst of these regions and carrying it into the future. I think all you need is a combin
Water purification (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I read an article some time ago which outlined a very low-tech way to help purify water in countries with high incidences of Malaria, Dysentery, etc. By painting the surface of huts/housing flat black and placing clear plastic water bottles on them for a few hours. The sun & UV help to kill off most parasites and biological pathogens quite effectively and at a price much cheaper than other filtration solutions. Nice low-tech solution which is cheap, effective, and requires no special equipment.
Severa
Re:Water purification (Score:4, Informative)
You've got that wrong, one way or another...
For UV sterilization, you want a highly reflective surface, that will reflect the UV back through the water a second time, as most organisms are already adapted to handle 1X sun-levels of UV. Better yet, of course, is a solar concentrator that will focus several more times as much UV at the water.
"Black" sounds like an attempt to use solar heat to raise the water temperature, but if so, it's unlikely to confer much of its heat to the bottle of water in this manner, and especially in winter, I doubt it will get near enough to boiling to do a good job of sterilization. Plus, it's not uncommon for such methods to have difficulty killing larger hardier organisms (parasite/insect larva).
Personally, I'm a much bigger fan of an even cheaper and simpler method; percolating water through a couple meters of fine sand to naturally remove 99% of contaminants. Instead of just killing biological contaminants, it also removes suspended solids and similar contamination that causes water to taste terrible. And it's so simple and uses widely and cheaply available materials (quite unlike paint or polished metal) even the poorest individuals can replicate sand filters.
The WHO apparently agrees: "Under suitable circumstances, slow sand filtration may be not only the cheapest and simplest but also the most efficient method of water treatment."
Parent
Duct tape (Score:2, Funny)
Chinese Type 72 (Score:2)
Use them NOW (Score:5, Insightful)
People can do their part by using these personal conservation technologies in their own lives.
A few times a week, I set out a big pot of stew or chili or soup in my solar cooker. Even in the dead of winter, I come home to a hot meal at the end of the day. It Works. And it's awesome.
RS
Other Great Low Tech Stoves (Score:4, Informative)
low tech invention harms lives (Score:2)
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A wind generator can only extract power from the flow it recieves, which relates to the cross-section that it sweeps. Compared to most other types of windmills, a belt/ribbon generator doesn't sweep very much cross-section.
~
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Look at it this way: the only reason why automobiles are so popular in the 1st world is that gasoline used to be dirt cheap, and not because cars are particularly efficient at anything. Cheap trumps efficient every time. To that end, the concerns in the "developing" and war-torn plac
Re: (Score:2)
Lords of Poverty by Graham Hancock
http://www.google.com/search?num=30&hl=en&c2coff=1&safe=off&q=lords+of+poverty+graham+hancock&btnG=Search [google.com]
~
Re: (Score:2)
1. Ghana is the exception. A lot of people wonder why it is, but it is. What "better international policies" would they benefit from?
2. The book's premise is that (over the last ~30 years, and now we might say the last 45 years) whatever has been done as "international aid" has not had a positive impact on the overall situation.
I wouldn't claim to know any solution, but would agree that what's intended as aid by foreign countries isn't working.
From what international ne
stupid (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
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Third to last paragraph in the link you posted...
Clearly, Africa does need the world's help. But Africa's destiny can be changed for the better only by Africans themselves.
I think that's the point the GP was trying to make and I tend to agree.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:stupid (Score:4, Interesting)
I know, right? Like those "New World" American colonies. Look what a shithole those ended up as... The UK's little experiment-that-rebelled, barely able to feed the rich, nevermind the poor; Canada, France's version of the same, we have to accept that they always had the climate against them anyway; And the mishmash in South America, man, a real sob-story with the Spanish taking their gold and the Vatican taking their souls.
Colonialism makes a nice "White Man's fault" excuse. Yet, I'd have to say that we really don't have a lot of examples that do anything but contradict that stance. Europeans found Africa in a state of savagery, and such has it stayed (though they've upgraded the weaponry used in tribal warfare - Though they need to thank (or curse) the Europeans even for that humble advancement).
The closest Africa ever came to pulling itself out of the mud (Biafra), it excised like a tumor. And how does it view attempts at Western aid to its woes? They seriously believe we've sent them condoms poisoned with AIDS to kill them all off (on a good day - On bad days, they accuse us of witchcraft).
Parent
Re:stupid (Score:5, Informative)
Not that colonization helped or anything.
Parent
Re:stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
All the same, nearly 50 years since the end of the colonial era, is it time perhaps for us to stop blaming the trauma of that encounter for all our problems? Who truly is to blame for this?
To my mind, many of Africa's most profound problems stem from the way Africans look at themselves: all too often, Africa suffers from low self-esteem.
I'm sorry, it looks like you didn't. But thanks for playing.
Parent