Appropriate Technology for the World’s People, Design
UNIV-392/492, PSC-392/492, HNRS-392, MW 4-5:30, 180-107
See pictures of the final presentations and potluck at Cal Poly’s Student Experimental Farm from spring 2017
UNIV-392/492, PSC-392/492, HNRS-392, MW 4-5:30, 180-107
See pictures of the final presentations and potluck at Cal Poly’s Student Experimental Farm from spring 2017
Pete Schwartz, Cal Poly Physics:, Pete’s Webpage: pschwart@calpoly.edu
Office hours: M(2:10), T(4:10), W(1:10), R(2:10), F(2:10)
See information from Design Winter 2016 and from previous classes.
See pictures of the final presentations and potluck at Cal Poly’s Student Experimental Farm
Please see the tentative course timeline presently being built. All course expectations can be found on the syllabus.
| Final Presentation: Monday, June 12 4 PM – 7 PM. | From the Final Exam Schedule |
The final exam is at the SEF.
Please see the links below to the possible projects. During your projects, you will develop a new webpage and move the information to this new page. For more information, please see some of the links below and read over the projects from last year’s class: Design 2016, the development theory class from last fall, and from earlier years on the Appropriate Technology Website. You are welcome to build off old projects, and to start new projects yourself. However, I make suggestions below for projects I personally emphasize and support.
| Link to webpage | Description of the topic | Members_Contact_info |
| Electricity for Navajo Nation | There are about 180,000 people living in the Navajo Nation many without running water and electricity Past work is (Winter 2017) PSC-320: Electricity for the Navajo Nation, and (Fall 2016) PSC-391: Pumping Water With DigDeep. Can we design a pumping system? You have a group of collaborators in Physics of Energy, likely to provide support in calculations and technology. This project website is shared with the Water for Navajo Nation project website since the projects are very closely linked. Also RCAC is an NGO that works with impoverished indigenous people in the California area.
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Anna Laird – aclaird@calpoly.edu Tyler Dery tdery@calpoly.edu Jessica Talbot jptalbot@calpoly.edu |
| Water for Navajo Nation | There are about 180,000 people living in the Navajo Nation many without running water and electricity Past work is (Winter 2017) PSC-320: Electricity for the Navajo Nation, and (Fall 2016) PSC-391: Pumping Water With DigDeep. Can we design a pumping system? You have a group of collaborators in Physics of Energy, likely to provide support in calculations and technology. T his project website is shared with the Electricity for Navajo Nation project website since the projects are very closely linked. |
Kelly McGartland- knmcgart@calpoly.edu Armando Ruiz-armruiz45@calpoly.edu Emily Miller enmiller@calpoly.edu |
| Large Cooker for Schools | We are developing solar electric cooking and have built several family-sized models. Now a boarding school in Uganda wants to build one to feed 500 school kids. Please see our publication for details. You have a group of collaborators in Physics of Energy, likely to provide support in calculations and technology. Overview of cooking in Africa by 2020 | Kyle Lemmerman-klemmerm@calpoly.edu
Nick Wagner-niwagner@calpoly.edu Tiffany Seto- |
| Magic Basket Cooker | Communities that cook using open fires inside the house produce harmful smoke particles in the air. These smoke particles are primarily harmful to the women who do the cooking and the children present during meal preparation. The World Health Organization estimates that 3 billion people cook using biomass and coal, causing 4 million deaths each year from breathing in these harmful emissions. By providing villages with an effective Retained Heat Cooker (RHC), we can drastically decrease the amount of fuel burned and reduce the amount of dangerous smoke that fills the houses of rural African villagers. In addition to increasing health risks, our Magic Basket Cooker would reduce the need to chop down as many trees for fuel, lessening the impacts of climate change and CO2 emissions. | John Robertson – jrober35@calpoly.edu
Max Yarbrough- Cole Van Brunt – cvanbrun@calpoly.edu |
| Aquaponics, – made cheap, simple, robust. | Aquaponics is being heralded by practitioners as the perfect way to grow food in developing countries. However, I think most embodiments suffer from two disadvantages: the extensive hardware makes the systems both expensive, and prone to disaster. Can you design and build a system that is simple, cheap, and robust? This project has been done by past classes, and you can learn from our aquaponics club. You have a group of collaborators in Physics of Energy, likely to provide support in calculations and technology. | Casey Everitt – caseyceveritt@gmail.com Eric Womack – Zach Cecchetti Connor Church |
| Solar Powered Garden | The Ghanaian Irrigation Project hopes to collaborate with and learn from Agbokpa – a small lake community in southwestern Ghana. We don’t want to intervene, disrupt, or entirely change what technology and farming looks like in Ghana. We do, however, hope to work with local Ghanaians and understand the community to bring any knowledge we can to help extend a learning, growing community. See past efforts from Fall 2016 , Winter 2016, and Fall 2015 | MODULAR UNIT Elysa Briens- ebriens@calpoly.edu Lucas Salem- lsalem@calpoly.edu Simon Krauter skrauter@calpoly.edu Caleb Ostgaard calebostgaard@gmail.com |
| Postpartum Hemorrhage (PPH) Device | Postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) is excessive bleeding in a mother after childbirth. PPH is the leading cause of perinatal maternal death around the world—it is estimated that one woman dies from PPH every four minutes. We we will be working with InPress Technologies in developing an extremely affordable device to be used in 3rd world countries. | PPH Malkam Goldstein mhgoldst@calpoly.edu Blake Hester bhester@calpoly.edu Marshall Mistry mnmistry@calpoly.edu Ben Trinh bjtrinh@calpoly.edu |
| Composting Toilets | In poor countries, people poop in local bushes, in the street, wherever. We need a radically inexpensive technology that could work better. I (Pete) have a bucket toilet at home that composts in the back yard and is used as fertilizer for the fruit trees – consistent with a model by SOIL in Haiti. Aid Africa is interested in trying a similar method for a family or community in Uganda. We’ve collaborated before, and it’s reasonable to think we could try this out in the coming year. Additionally, a past student works with Sanivation that makes charcoal briquettes out of poop (I think) in Kenya, and also recommends we contact Sanergy in Nairobi. I’ve worked a lot with Cami (Sanivation) when she was a student here. She sends this Email to us, and provides this document of their interests. | Denise Man deman@calpoly.edu Irma Marin imarin@calpoly.edu Sam Ricklefs sricklef@calpoly.edu Maddy Ciulla iamstargirl13@gmail.com |
| We have the opportunity to partner with nutritionists at Cal Poly and Wash U. in addressing infant nutrition in Africa. The following three challenges would involve this collaboration. | ||
| Baby feeding device | You know how 6 mo olds basically eat by sucking and swallowing, so spoons are a mess, but kids now take pureed vegetables from packets, and they do not even need bibs to stay clean. Can we create a reusable, food safe device to feed a 6 mo old? Peggy C. Papathakis, Food Science and Nutrition, Cal Poly | |
| Low tech solar cooker | We are always in need of cooking devices, things that capture the sun’s energy and can boil beans. Can we create some kind of plastic tube a mother could leave in the sun for some hours and cook the beans 90%? The first (and possibly only) part of this project would be to investigate the myriad solar cooking technologies at Solar Cookers International, and inquire how is it that people cook and is there something already that would work fine. Peggy C. Papathakis, Food Science and Nutrition, Cal Poly | |
| Flour Container | We need some storage conditions/ devices to reduce aflatoxin (mold) contamination post harvest, the method and some little testing strip for humidity? Aflatoxin grows in legumes, etc. that is stored… for instance, don’t grind your own peanut butter, because the peanut butter stays around in the grinder for a long time. Aflatoxin causes liver cancer and low birth weight and stunted growth. We need a way to keep food dry. There is a need for containers to store flours in that are weevil resistant? People buy flour in 25 kg bags and keep it. It gets infested. Or they grind their own flour, but put it back in the bag they brought the grain in. The bag is infested. Peggy C. Papathakis, Food Science and Nutrition, Cal Poly |
Nicholas Crawford nrcrawfo@calpoly.edu Sophia Micheletti Chris Chaboya Phoebe Conrad |
| Solar Refrigeration | We are making the cold stuff! | Paige Hillen- paigehillen@gmail.com Brendan Waltman Nicholas Hardy Marco Zuniga Matt Woodle |
| Insulating Bricks for stoves | Create a new form of insulating bricks using rice hulls for Aid Africa to use in their cook stoves. See past efforts from Fall 2016 at Rice Hull Pulverizer and Insulating Brick Making Overview of cooking in Africa by 2020 | |
| Garri in Ghana | Please read about how garri is made from cassava, an African stable. There are some automatic garri makers and Burro is working with Stanford to make one. But rather than make them for use over a fire, can we insulate the pot and cook them with Insulated Solar Electric Cooking? Please see our publication about insulated solar electric cooking. |