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Low-tech Inventions That Help Change Lives

Posted by Zonk on 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."

12 of 174 comments (clear)

  1. KISS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful
    Like most things that have changed life for the better, the bulk have been from a simple premise, such as removal of the handle from the Broad Street pump.


    Provide countries with the simple necessities, and life will get easier and more productive.


    Cheers



    "You've got a chart filling a whole wall with interlocking pathways and reactions to shock and the researcher says "If I can just control this one molecule/enzyme/compound I'll stop the whole negative physiologic cascade of post haemorrhagic shock." Yeah, right."

  2. #1 invention by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The condom should be at the top of that list...

    1. Re:#1 invention by Mikachu · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Wrong on that one. Condoms have been in use since ancient Egyptian times. The oldest known physical condom was found in 1640, made of animal intestine. I'd hardly call that high-tech.

  3. Chimney starter by Vrallis · · Score: 1, Insightful

    The "high efficiency stove" is just a chimney starter using pots the right size to fully close the top. Yeah, I applaud them for trying to find ways to help, but these really aren't "inventions," just re-applications of existing items and concepts.

    1. Re:Chimney starter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      these really aren't "inventions," just re-applications of existing items and concepts.
      Um, what? 99.99% of inventions are "just re-applications of existing items and concepts", including such boring and inconsequential devices as the car, the airplane, and the atomic bomb.
    2. Re:Chimney starter by gad_zuki! · · Score: 2, Insightful

      >just re-applications of existing items and concepts.

        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.

  4. "Save Darfur Stove" is stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful
    Twenty-five years ago, my mom bought a commercial bbq grill that looks exactly like the "Save Darfur Stove" in the article. The only thing that makes this "newsworthy" in the eyes of Popular Mechanics is the association with "the poor" and the current crises in Darfur. Which is dumb: The biggest reason African countries have problems (HIV AIDS, hunger, poverty, suffering ) is because of the Africans themselves. From http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/africa/10/11/africa.billions.ap/index.html:

    Report: African wars cost billions
    October 11, 2007

    Story highlights
    Report: Africa's wars in recent decades have cost about $18 billion a year
    Report examined 23 African nations in wars between 1990 and 2005
    Report estimates fighting cost at total of about $300 billion
    Report excludes Somalia, in war since dictatorship overthrown in 1991

    DAKAR, Senegal (AP) -- About $18 billion a year has been drained from Africa by nearly two dozen wars in recent decades, a new report states, a price some officials say could've helped solve the AIDS crisis and created stronger economies in the world's poorest region.

    "This is money Africa can ill afford to lose," Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf wrote in an introduction to the report by the British charity Oxfam and two groups that seek tougher controls on small arms, Saferworld and the International Action Network on Small Arms.

    "The sums are appalling: the price that Africa is paying could cover the cost of solving the HIV and AIDS crisis in Africa, or provide education, water and prevention and treatment for tuberculosis and malaria," Sirleaf added. "Literally thousands of hospitals, schools, and roads could have been built."

    That war makes economies suffer is nothing new, but few have tried to estimate the real cost across Africa.

    Compared to peaceful countries, war-battered African nations have "50 percent more infant deaths, 15 percent more undernourished people, life expectancy reduced by five years, 20 percent more adult illiteracy, 2.5 times fewer doctors per patient and 12.4 percent less food per person," the report estimates.

    On average, the economies of African nations wracked by armed conflict contracted by 15 percent, and the impact generally worsened the longer a war lasted, the report said.

    The report based its figures on the ill effects on economic growth by estimating what growth might have been in countries if they had not suffered conflicts. During Guinea-Bissau's 1989-99 war, for example, projected growth was 5 percent, but the economy decreased 10 percent, it said.

    "This methodology almost certainly gives an underestimate," the group said in a joint statement.

    "It does not include the economic impact on neighboring countries, which could suffer from political insecurity or a sudden influx of refugees. The study only covers periods of actual combat, but some costs of war, such as increased military spending and a struggling economy, continue long after the fighting has stopped."

    The report looked at 23 African nations that had wars between 1990 and 2005, estimating the fighting cost a total of about $300 billion.

    "This is a massive waste of resources -- roughly equivalent to total international aid to Africa from major donors during the same period," the report said.

    The report did not include Somalia, which has been in a state of anarchy and war since a dictatorship was overthrown in 1991 but for which no statistics were available.

    The group blamed the availability of small arms for fueling fighting in Africa. It said about 95 percent of the weapons used in African wars -- mostly the ubiquitous Kalashnikov automatic rifle -- are imported from outside the continent.

    Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

  5. Appropriate Technology by EaglemanBSA · · Score: 4, Insightful

    My master's degree is design of an appropriate technology vehicle -- turns out, the appropriate technology movement was abandoned, even to the point of making the phrase a faux-pas in the engineering community based on the idea that it provided mediocre solutions, and that the modern world was simply trying to placate the developing world with sub-par solutions. After projects like the OLPC however, I think it's become evident that applications of simple technology to problems that demand it deserve just as much attention. Giving someone who can't afford gasoline or buy spare car parts a car is like giving Robinson Caruso a cell phone where he can't get reception.

    --
    Quiz: True or False -- On a scale of 1 to 10, what is your middle name?
  6. Re:Hexayurts by noidentity · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "A roomy shelter costing just over $200, takes just a few hours to build, and has the R-value of a typical house."

    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?

  7. Re:Hexayurts by replicant108 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Fascinating videos. The last one especially is excellent.

    Ghandi+Bucky Fuller+FOSS = interesting stuff!

    This is a page with more info on the Hexayurt:

    http://www.appropedia.org/Hexayurt_Project

  8. Use them NOW by Ralph+Spoilsport · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Use these energy saving systems NOW in countries like the USA and Europe. Conserve energy NOW, especially oil and natgas. Oil can be made into all kinds of amazing substances and burning it up as fuel is like making logs out of $20 bills. Natgas is great for making into fertiliser. We need oil for materials and natgas for food. We need to use Other Technologies for electrical generation (Solar, Wind, hydro, nuke, geothermal, whatever) so we can stretch out our supply of petrochemicals as long as possible.

    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

    --
    Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
  9. Re:stupid by feepness · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm sorry, the answer was colonialism . But thanks for playing. You did read your own link, didn't you?

    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.