Low-tech Inventions That Help Change Lives

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."

Re:Drill-style water pump

[urcreepyneighbor]

It sounds like you're talking about Archimedes' screw [wikipedia.org].

Re:Drill-style water pump

[Telvin_3d]

I do believe that this invention is known as an Archimede's Screw.
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.

Hexayurts

[StCredZero]

A lot of these sorts of technologies were aggregated [archive.org] (PDF) by the Hexayurt folks. The hexayurt is itself one of these technologies. A roomy shelter costing just over $200, takes just a few hours to build, and has the R-value of a typical house.

http://hexayurt.com/ [hexayurt.com]

Re:Drill-style water pump

[tmasssey]

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:Drill-style water pump

[jfengel]

Is that different from the Archimedes Screw, which has been used for well over 2,000 years? It's pretty clever but it's not exactly new.

Re:Chimney starter

[QuantumRiff]

They went out, and studied the needs, and the current stuff they used, every thing from the size of pots, to the long stick they use to stir it, and that women would leave villages for hours looking for wood, and get their arms chopped off by bad people. So, they tailor made and engineered something stable, cost effective, designed for the size/style of equipment they already use, and it uses 1/4 the fuel, meaning less trips out into the dangerous woods.. they are not just a store bought BBQ starter..

Condoms

[ChameleonDave]

Read up on condoms. You'll find that they have also been made of lambskin and other materials. They are not necessarily high-tech.

Water purification

[Amoeba]

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.

stupid

[Scrameustache]

Which is dumb: The biggest reason African countries have problems (HIV AIDS, hunger, poverty, suffering ) is because of the Africans themselves.

I'm sorry, the answer was colonialism [bbc.co.uk]. But thanks for playing.

Re:stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the problem is still the white man's fault, not:

Robert Mugabe, imprisoning farmers and giving their working farms to friends. Zimbabwe will be in crisis in a couple years.

Omar Bongo, head of Gabon and one of the wealthiest leaders in the world. Has vast estates in France. Nice.

Blaise Compaore, of Burkina Faso became prez when the previous guy had an "accident."

Joseph Kabila, of the Congo. A general in the bloodiest conflict since WWII.

And I didn't even mention: the Janjaweed, AIDS, pirates, and diseases that the Western world has eradicated.

I'm sure you will still blame all this on white colonialists. Because they are a product of it. But come on, white people haven't ruled in years. What does it take until we are no longer to blame?

Re:stupid

[FooAtWFU]

But before they were colonized, Africa was still fraught with violence. Violence, war, and general disorder are hardly a uniquely European invention. African tribes have been fighting amongst each other for thousands of years. Their problems are the ancient problems of society and mankind.

Not that colonization helped or anything.

Other Great Low Tech Stoves

[codeknitter]

The Stoves BioEnergy Discussion List (web site http://www.bioenergylists.org/ [bioenergylists.org]) is a really great resource if you are interested in the global effort to build better, cheaper, low tech cooking stoves. Appropriate technology isn't dead, it's thriving in a lot of these areas where there are limited resources, and not a lot of press coverage. This is My favorite Darfur stove: http://www.bioenergylists.org/en/taxonomy/term/909 [bioenergylists.org] It can be built in the refugee camp instead of shipped there, and it can easily be modified to handle charcoal. Fuel flexibility is important when there are limited resources.

Re:Water purification

[evilviper]

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

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."

Re:Drill-style water pump

[maggard]

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.