OLPC Experiments With Cow-Powered Laptops

An anonymous reader writes "The One Laptop Per Child Project (OLPC) is toying with a novel source of power for its low-cost XO laptops: cows. "We plan to drive a dynamo (taken from an old Fiat) through a system of belts and pulleys using cows/cattle," wrote OLPC's Arjun Sarwal, in an October 21 e-mail posted to one of the group's discussion lists. Sarwal and others are now finalizing the design of the cow-powered generator."

Comments

Re:Cows don't walk much

[Eivind]

Read the article -- cattle is already used in this region for stuff like running waterpumps and similar. So we can assume that the problem of enticing the cows to walk in a circle (not on a conveyor belt) is a solved one.

Re:Something doesn't smell right

[monk.e.boy]

Wouldn't you harness them to a pole that is perpendicular to the shaft of the generator.

I'm sure they used to grind flour with the same sort of technology.

Bull(ock) power is common in India

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Almost all the carts in India are drawn by bullocks (castrated bulls). Bullocks are used for irrigation, pressing oil out of seeds etc. They are trained to walk back and forth to draw water out of wells and to walk in circles to press oil. It is an eerie sight to drive on the rural roads in India late at night. The villagers cart their stuff to the nearest market towns, sell, watch a movie, get drunk and sleep in their carts. These bullocks are trained to walk home unaided. So you would come across this caravan of six or eight bullock carts, all obediently following the traffic rules (left side of the road) and plodding along. If you catch them going in opposite direction their eyes gleam eerily reflecting the headlamp. Always thought it would be a very simple thing to silently climb on to the leading cart, override the autopilot and drive the caravan to a secluded spot and rob the villagers. But somehow such crimes don't happen in rural India. (Other kinds of crimes do happen, don't want to paint too rosy a picture.)

It would be a trivial thing to gear up an oil press and drive a tiny generator to power a few laptops.

The design needs improvement.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

He is using a couple of bicycle wheels to increase the rpm to drive a truck alternator it looks like. Simple mechanism, easily maintained by the bicycle mechanics of an Indian village. This might find more applications too. Like charging their cell phones. A large part of rural India is still not on the national electric grid. Even the grid goes down sometimes in the rural areas. Most villages have this oil press powered by bullocks walking in a circular path (about 30 feet in diameter) dragging a yoke connected to a central pivot. They take a minute to finish a circuit. RPM=1. The gearing ratio from the picture appears to be 1: 60. (10x6). Not enough in my opinion to drive a standard truck alternator. Their efficiency peaks at around 1800 RPM. (I did a windmill for my undergrad project and I needed to gear it up to 1800 RPM to drive a truck alternator). Need to add another wheel set, not difficult to do.

Low-power laptop

[lobiusmoop]

The fact that the XO-1 was specifically designed to run on only 2-3 watts (using Geode at 0.8 watts and LCD-backlit / reflective display at 0.1 to 1 watts), compared to the 15-20 watts on a normal laptop or 100-200 watts on a desktop makes this sort of thing quite feasible.

Re:Vegan/Vegetarian Venn Diagram

[darthflo]

To my knowledge, vegetarians don't eat meat while vegans won't eat meat, eggs, milk (yeah, I know milk is usually consumed by drinking, bug you can freeze and eat it.) and any other animal products. Therefore, not all vegetarians are vegans while all vegans are vegetarians.
Opposition against humans wearing animal fur, humans hurting animals, "anything that harms animals" as you say occurs within a similar subset of the human population, but is - as far as I know - not equal to veganism or vegetarianism.

Re:Wow...Second world nations?

[pipatron]

RTFA:

the group considered using solar energy but sunlight near Mumbai was not "consistently strong."

Super Cow Power

[morgan_greywolf]

My computers are super cow powered. See?


$ apt-get moo
      (__)
      (oo)
/------\/
/ | ||
  * /\---/\
    ~~ ~~

Re:Something doesn't smell right

[Thaelon]

The voluminous methane cows produce is from burping. Your tube would just get clogged at the end of the cow you chose.