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Inventor of Low Tech Fridge Wins Award

Posted by michael on from the swamp-cooler dept.

juju2112 writes "Mohammed Bah Abba of Nigeria won a Rolex award for his pot-in-pot invention. Here's how it works. You take a smaller pot and put it inside a larger pot. Fill the space in between them with wet sand, and cover the top with a wet cloth. When the water evaporates, it pulls the heat out with it, making the inside cold. It's a natural, cheap, easy-to-make refrigerator."

9 of 369 comments (clear)

  1. keeping beer cool by phelix_da_kat · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Remember at school/university when we use the same principle to keep our beer cold.

    Grab a clean sock, soak in water, wring out, cover teh can of beer and leave on the window sill.. LOL

  2. performance parameters? by torpor · · Score: 4, Interesting

    i'd sure like to know how often you have to change the wet sand, in order to get 2 weeks worth of refrigeration?

    anyone got any napkin-science calculations that can give us a ballpark of whats needed? i'm sure this is a simple physics equation, only i'm certainly not qualified to work out the formula ...

    --
    ; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
  3. I'm happy for him and all but.. by Propagandhi · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This same man (and invention) won an invention of the year award from time (as seen here) in 2001. I guess it's interesting that he also won this award, but why is Rolex handing out awards years after the fact? Maybe I'm just used to the break neck pace of computer advancement, but this seems a little.. late.

  4. This works the other way too by Red_Harvest · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Using water to avoid food freezing used to be very common in Norway (and doubtless in other countries with similar climates) before the advent of electricity.

    Put a few buckets of water in your food storage room, and as long as the water is not frozen, the food in the room will not freeze either. Just before the water freezes, replace the buckets with liquid water. Repeat as necessary, and the food will not freeze.

  5. Re:This is New? by asdf+101 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Prior art apart, this is more a case of practical application on a scale previously unknown for this device.

    The main reason for any award that this "device" would be eligible for is of course its social impact. If a simple arrangement of clay pots can prolong the life of perishable food in areas that don't have our "off the shelf from the supermarket perceptual abundance", it's got my vote. If it can drive more kids to school rather than have them vending out on the streets, it should have your vote too.

    You might be well right when you say that this is an old invention. But I would caution against demeriting it simpy on account of that. Once again, clearly, the impact of the invention's application counts just as much as (maybe even more than) the invention itself.

    One more example of applied commonplace knowledge -- Freeplay radio. Just how long have we known of windup springs and their potential energy???

  6. Invention ? by mritunjai · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I second the people posting that its around 4000 year old method.

    I'm from India and I first I read about it when I was around 10 year old (I'm 23) in a popular social magazine (called 'Dharmyuga', the most popular magazine of its time). It had schematics identical to those offered by this fellow, and yes, they mentioned it to be "very old technique". My dad still has collection of old issues of this mag and I'm sure I can fish out the article mentioning this 'invention'.

    Can't these fellows do at least a google query to verify that whatever they're offering money for is indeed an invention ??

    Several docs with feedback

    --
    - mritunjai
  7. Doesn't matter? by John+Harrison · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Mr. Smarty Pants,

    If this is so blindingly obvious maybe you should have invented it and started selling low-cost refridgeration equipment in Africa. If you read up on the effects of this device you would find that young women in families that use the device are now allowed to go to school instead of being sent to the market to sell goods? Why? Because crops last longer so they don't have to sell them as soon as they pick them.

    So tell those young girls that it doesn't matter. Tell the same thing to families that have food that lasts weeks instead of days.

    Just because something is simple doesn't mean it doesn't matter.

    --
    Lasers Controlled Games!
    1. Re:Doesn't matter? by namidim · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I think the point is not that it isn't useful but that it was already being used. My relatives in South Africa know about this trick. The boy scouts use it there for goodness sake. I've been looking around and apparently the "inventor" never even checked the interior temperature of his device. Also the same article seems to indicate the social impacts reported were not indipendantly verified, but reported by Abba himself....

  8. Air conditioning with wet hay bale by dwhite20899 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We used to take a hand's width "slice" of straw from the end of a square bale, make it wet and stick in the window - instant air conditioner. The breeze blowing through it (coming INTO the room - you don't want to cool the OUTSIDE) had the heat "removed" with this same process.

    I doubt those people have the straw/grass/etc. to waste on A/C, though.