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."

Comments

Drill-style water pump

[phorm]

One of my favorites was the water-pump that was essentially a spiral "drill" type shape enclosed in a tube. As you rotate the drill, it water in the spirals would be moved upwards through the pipe and - eventually - out the spout at the top.

My understanding was that it's a lot better than many of the bucket+rope configurations used with wells.

Re:Drill-style water pump

[urcreepyneighbor]

It sounds like you're talking about Archimedes' screw.

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
The fact that it is named after a dead Greek should tell you how well known the principles of it are.

Re:Drill-style water pump

[tmasssey]

It's called an Archimedes' Screw. 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: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.

my favorite..

[Anonymous Coward]

The Pot in pot refrigerator

Re:my favorite..

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coolgardie_safe

Over 100 years older, and it would seem to more effective (wind + water cooling) as opposed to just water evaporation.

Don't these award people have the internet?

Hexayurts

[StCredZero]

A lot of these sorts of technologies were aggregated (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/

Re:Hexayurts

[noidentity]

"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?

Re:Hexayurts

[replicant108]

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

Re:Hexayurts

[vkg]

Sorry you were having trouble with the web site. I'm Vinay, the guy who designed the hexayurt. What did you want to know that you couldn't find there?

Re:Hexayurts

[RealAlaskan]

I have a few hexayurt questions:

• How do you tie the hexayurts down so they don't blow away in the first breeze? I don't see any hard points to tie a rope to.
• Your site has patterns for the 6 footer, and the stretch 6. Any patterns for the bigger ones?
• What tape are you using? I saw passing references, but I'm not sure of the details.
• Have you given any thought to ways to scale this up slightly and make it more permanent? Maybe using structural insulated panels? I realize that's totally off-topic for your immediate purpose, but it might help win acceptance if it were seen as more mainstream.

And a few hexayurt comments:

• This could work well in a cold climate, if you could tie it down. Mound up dirt over a barrel stove, with the stove on one side of the mound and the stove pipe running level through the dirt and up out the far side. Put the hexayurt on the level top. People have lived through Fairbanks winters in a wall tent that way; a hexayurt would be luxurious in comparison.
• A clever pattern to tie or cut a blue tarp to fit over the top might be the answer to the tie-down problem. A UV-resistant blue tarp would be a real god-send, too, if you could find such a thing.
• This looks as if it could have a lot of utility in the larger sizes as a temporary shelter for scout jamborees, hunting camps, and so on. A more permanent version could be a storage shed, a workshop, a studio, a recreational cabin ...
• Getting back to the troubles in the tropics, you mention using cardboard honeycomb material for cheap shelter. Have you looked at wax-impregnated cardboard? There might be some problems with fire resistance and tape adhesion, but the material is wonderfully water resistant and strong.

#1 invention

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:#1 invention

[CaptainPatent]

The problem is that invention can be countered by the Roman Catholic! :-P

Re:#1 invention

[Mikachu]

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.

Re:Chimney starter

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Mousetrap

[wandm]

Have you ever tried to catch mice?

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

Appropriate Technology

[EaglemanBSA]

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.

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..

Re:Chimney starter

[gad_zuki!]

>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.

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.

Re:Chimney starter

[halcyon1234]

And everything is just an extension of Object. So what?

even more :More about Shawn at MIT

[arbitraryaardvark]

http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2004/10/65276
A MacGyver for the Third World
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aidg/612856202/in/set-72157600466239024/
flickr
http://instapundit.com/archives2/010388.php
instapundit is blogging the conference
http://www.aidg.org/component/option,com_jd-wp/Itemid,34/p,33/
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.

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.

Re:Water purification

[falconwolf]

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.

Several years ago I read an article online about how some group was purifying water will ceramic, clay, pots. Water would be put into the pots then it would slowly seep through, when it did contaminants were removed. I just did a quick Google of purify water ceramic OR clay pots to see if I could find TFA and the first result was Oxfam on the border: Where the crisis in Darfur meets Chad and Central Africa with a paragraph on how pots with sand in them are used to purify water. Those making the pots are able to create an income in making them.

Falcon

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."

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 . But thanks for playing.

Re:stupid

[pla]

I'm sorry, the answer was colonialism. But thanks for playing.

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).

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.

Re:stupid

[feepness]

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.

Duct tape

[so many toms (me too]

Yeesh... enough said.

Use them NOW

[Ralph Spoilsport]

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

Other Great Low Tech Stoves

[codeknitter]

The Stoves BioEnergy Discussion List (web site http://www.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 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.