Timeline Appropriate Technology Spring 2017

Timeline for Appropriate Technology, Design, Spring 2017 – Activities subject to change. Please check 48 hours before class.
See the 2015 Reading Questions



Week 1
Monday: Personal Introductions, Introduction of Focus Groups, prepare for Red Tag Shop Test.
(1) Before class, please read up on the different projects and do a little more research on anything that particularly interests you.
(2) Please read about the winners of the USAID award, and then read about the rest of the awards.

SHOP: For just the first week, meet for shop at the hangar shown in attachment below. Make sure you wear long pants and close toed shoes. All subsequent shop classes will be in Bonderson. Lastly, please read through the entire shop webpage AND see the video at the top before the first shop class: Mustang Red Tag Preparation

hangar.png

Wednesday: Peter Keller Talks about AID Africa: People and the Technology.

(1) Prepare for Peter’s visit by going to their website: http://www.aidafrica.net/and reading what they do and watching the short video.
(2) Peter has also requested that you read through and see the video on this website: Gates Foundation Big Bet
(3) Please read about the collaboration we have with Aid Africa. Please see this video about our project developing an improved cookstove for implementation in Uganda. If that link doesn’t work, please try this. If you are interested to know more, you can read the entire scientific paper here.
(4) Research more about a project you’re interested in. Please spend at least half an hour on this.

Week 2
Monday: We hope to define project groups
1) Please sign up for at least one project – notice we added another project for Aid Africa – Retained Heat Cooking. Additionally, I’ve communicated with
Peggy C. Papathakis (Food Science and Nutrition, Cal Poly) who has done wonderful things with child nutrition in Africa. She has provided 4 technical challenges related to child nutrition. Please have a look.
2) Please read Lauren Wilcox: Tech Design,
3) Please read Schumacher: Small is Beautiful
4) See this video and think about what it means to be creative: TED: Gever Tulley, My daughter and I went to his camp three years ago.
5) Note that the final presentation, likely to be held at the student experimental farm, is on Friday at 4 PM. I don’t know how many of you are planning to be gone already, but we should talk as a group to make sure we have reasonable expectations. There is another option… we could take the slot for 5:10 classes because no one in this class could be in a 5:10 class MW. This would put the final presentations on Monday at 4 PM. I’d be willing to make this change only if everyone in the class agreed.
6) Start our first self intervention. Go to the self intervention page (link on main website) and begin saving your trash, recyclables, and compostables.

!!!! FOR SHOP:
a) we are meeting in the Hangar again on Monday. Those that have not taken the red tag test can take it there. The others will work with me on project development and collaboration building. Tuesday morning, we will meet at Bonderson (see below).

Bonderson.png

Wednesday:
Meet at the SEF, Student Experimental Farm

SEF.png

Decision Matrices, divergent and convergent engineering.
Don’t Throw Anything Away! and log your week long saga on our Self Intervention Webpage

Also, please create an account for this wikispaces website with username: “firstname_lastname”, such as mine: Pete_Schwartz. Then enter your name on the main class website by one or more projects you’re interested in and do some research. You should be prepared to state something that you learned and/or are interested in.

1) Think about working in groups and see: IDEO, Rapid Prototyping
Please also read:
2) Bill Gates Drinks Poop Extract
3) see this video: How I make a new Webpage
4) See a decision matrix template based on a my design for the outdoor shower at my house.
5) After Tuesday morning’s shop section, we discussed the project of the baby feeding device vs. refrigeration. It was awkward for me, bringing me into direct conflict with wanting to both respect the projects as your own, and really wanting to collaborate with the nutrition and health people. In the end, I realized a few things. (1) My experiences only support the theme I was professing: If you want a group project to be successful, make sure that all stakeholders have ownership. (2) I really don’t know what will come from a refrigerator project because there is so much for all of us to learn about it. (3) My fundamental priority is education. Even if we don’t come up with a product to change the world, we will all learn lots of interesting things. (4) I haven’t communicated well with the nutritionists, and I can continue to improve communication. If there is opportunity here, it will still be here next year. (5) There’s a new family of Peltier heat pumps that absolutely kick ass and will likely be game changers in the near future. This is our opportunity to plan for this future technology.
On a slightly different angle, there are too many people in this group, and the water pumping group, so we need to somehow move people around. This is something to talk about Wednesday at the Student Experimental Farm. – see you 4:10 (or 4:20) at the SEF!

By midnight, Saturday night, April 15: Establish your group’s website, complete with a picture of your group having fun.

Week 3
Monday
Peggy Papathakis talks about Efforts in Malawi.

(1) Read about Peggy’s work that won her the Cal Poly Disguished Scholarship Award.
(2) Video of teen Mom Lyna.
(3) Video of Mary Rath, teen mom.
(4) MamaChiponde Study Video
(5) please read Reduction in Child Mortality
(6) Please read about eating caterpillars in Burkina Faso
(7 !!!!!!) I’m the only one who has logged the self intervention. This is part of your grade and it’s easy to get 100%. Please do it.
(8) Make sure you make transportation arrangements to meet at my house Wednesday. Bike, carpool, walk, take the bus! All good.

Wednesday: Bhoj Rai gives talk about his experience in the Peace Corps
This will take place at Pete’s house, so make sure you’re able to get there. While I hope to see everyone here, it is important to note that (just like all classes), attendance is your own decision. Your obligation toward a grade in this class is commitment to your group and knowledge of the material we cover. Oh, I (Pete) has a class that ends at 4:00 PM, so I won’t be there until about 4:15, so make yourselves comfortable in the front yard if you get there earlier than I do. Don’t bust the door down. Just eat some arugula or collard tree leaves.

visit my house. Before coming, please see the following two videos:
1) Please see video my house
2) Please see video Story of Stuff
3) Please read this story in NPR about water on the Navajo Nation
Petes house.png

What are you doing to celebrate our planet on Earth day?, This Saturday?
Also, Bhoj Rai and the Peace Corps are meeting at Santa Rosa Park at 2 PM for a free open celebration with food.
Earth Day April 22nd at El Chorro Regional Park.jpg

Week 4: The Design Process, Fail Early, Fail Often
Monday:
First Group Presentation is next Monday!
Please fill your website with demographic information about the people of the community your project is concerned with, your problem statement and any other background. I encourage you to use graphics from Gapminder.org.
Bring into class a statement addressing a “problem”. Why was this a problem?.. “because of it I couldn’t do xyz”… what is special about xyz?. Why is this a problem. Please follow this back to your fundamental priority or value. Then consider how to examine your fundamental priority. Do this for a personal experience and also do this for your group challenge.
Read Fail Early, Fail Often this is geared toward software engineering. Please understand the purpose of low fidelity prototypes, medium fidelity prototypes, and high fidelity prototypes.
Tom Kelly: on observing
Tom Kelly: Fail Early, Fail Often (Treat Life as an Experiment)
and http://www.economist.com/node/18557776

Wednesday: Amy Degenkolb Visits! Send her Email: amelia.degenkolb@inpresstechnologies.com
1) Read about Postpartum Hemorrhaging (PPH) See the people page and note that Amy Degenklob will be coming to class to talk about what is NOT on the website: how to make this technology available very inexpensively in poor countries; and her efforts in India and Indonesia.
2) Bill Gates’ $1000 toilet Only 1 reading allows time to design your presentation… prototype.
3) Please read about Faith the Kenyan Farmer

Website update due Sunday night, midnight

  • Problem statement and constraints
  • Decision matrix decision matrix template
  • Description of your target community
  • Research you’ve done
  • Your efforts in shop and what you’ve made – see last year’s websites for inspiration.
  • Any other update
  • Pictures of your group – with names and contact information if you’re willing to share it

Week 5 Design/Development Firms – First Presentations!
Monday –
1) By class Monday, send me an Email describing how you are getting on in your group. pschwart@calpoly.edu. Are you happy? Is everyone doing their share of the work to your satisfaction? Is everyone’s voice being heard? Respected?
2) Read how D-Rev is changing the game and reaching new audiences
3) Watch MASS’s campaign “Beyond the Buildings

In Class: 2 Minute Presentation on your project
Please include (if appropriate):
1) Problem statement
2) Brief Description of the People and Area you are addressing.
3) Some constraints and/or resources that pertain to the implementation.
4) A design matrix

Wednesday: Ryan Alaniz: ralaniz@calpoly.edu, Bldg 47, Rm 13F
1) Please read Professor Alaniz’s short book: Conscientious Gringo
Think about how you want to be in your project and what we need to be careful of as we go forth. Please make an effort to answer the questions, and maybe focus on any particular question you find compelling.
2) Next week you will start building something in the shop. Please plan for it.
3) Please update the main project website table. In particular, change the “description of topic” entry so that it’s a message from your group, not from me. Also, check the other entries and make sure that all the group members are on it and that no group members are elsewhere.

Week 6
Monday: Steph Wise will talk about her work in a Refugee Camp in Turkey
Please Read before class:
Diary of a Mediterranean Rescue Worker
the refugee crisis explained
a very ridiculous and kind of amazing explanation of the war in syria
Read through the “don’t throw anything away” self interventions.
Get your hands involved in building something this week… starting in the shop!

Wednesday: Roger Comes to talk about whatever we talk about.
Acceptance of Change
5 steps of grieving: Kübler-Ross model
Pete adds talk about Happiness: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJGrXgd-jxk
Read about Bhutan’s Happiness index
Read Jevon’s Paradox
Read Helicopter Invitation
Read about Happiness Reflection in China I added this a little late, so you can have class time to read it.
You can watch this whole video or start it at 2 minutes and 10 seconds to just watch the part on Jevon’s Paradox
Pete’s Commentary on Jevon’s Paradox
Please read through each others’ self intervention reflections (main class website).
After Class Begin our Empathy Self Intervention: Consider a time when you are dealing with another person and you recognize that you are regarding them as “the other”… whether it be in a conflict, or in amusement, contempt, lust or whatever. See if you can empathize with them – how are they seeing the world? Describe this process and how it might transform your interactions with them.

Week 7
Monday
1. Read why Tech adoption fails so many times – but read the other article first.
(Kind of a heavy text but there are only a few pages so do your best!)
2. Empathy in Design
http://www.ideo.com/images/uploads/news/pdfs/Empathy_on_the_Edge.pdf
-empathy in design leads to problem solving
3. Please consider your empathy intervention. It’s described in the “after class” for last Wednesday.

Hey, so after class Wednesday, some folks stayed around until after 6:00. During this process, they asked for Roger’s Information. Roger welcomes your contact to him: rogersburton@gmail.com
Also, folks asked about my transformation as an instructor and my recent publication: Parallel Pedagogy . If you can’t get access to the paper because you’re off campus, here is the free pdf.
More information about my teaching if you like in my public application for promotion. Try my teaching statement and student evaluation section.

Wednesday

1) Tom Kelly: on the art of being creative

Read about Takachar: http://takachar.strikingly.com/ and see the video with great music.

2) Read about an important lesson we can learn by keeping an open mind.

3) Plan what your group is going to do during shop.

4) Did you record your Empathy Self Intervention?

5) In class – discussion about the technology gutter

Post your Empathy intervention on the intervention webpage.

Week 8
Monday – Second Presentation/Design Reviews for Navajo Nation, Aflatoxin/Food Storage, Pump for Amy

(1) Please watch this video: EWB_Failure_restructuring
(2) Please present 5-10 minutes with your hardware. Be prepared to present failures and successes and lessons learned. This should include communication issues with the group.
(3) Post second (Empathy) intervention before midnight on intervention page.

NOTE: Wednesday, at 6:30 AM, I’m going to “attend” a UN webinar about the Energy/Humanitarian Nexus.

Wednesday – Presentations for the other groups: Solar Electric Cooking, Magic Basket, Aquaponics, Drip Systems, Bucket Toilet, Solar Ice
When to take our final exam?: Our final presentation at the SEF is scheduled from 4-7 PM Friday. I’m reasonably sure that no one has a final scheduled for Monday 4-7 PM because this would conflict with our class, AND it’s unlikely that anyone has a conflict with Wednesday 4-7 PM. Please consider if you’d like to change our meeting time… we can only do this if everyone agrees.

(1) Read: Peace, Security, Development and the Environment
(2) Please guess what % of the US national budget goes to foreign aid, then please read NPR’s article about it
(3) Please bring in your Sustainability, Footprint
(4) Please see Guateca Information Video and Guateca Music Video
(5) Please read my analysis of my failure in Guateca.

By Midnight, Saturday Night, Please update your website for feedback.
Week 9
Monday – Memorial Day

Wednesday: Jim Keese presents about cookstoves in Peru.

  • In my efforts to make a practice final exam, please see the Final Exam from last year’s class. This year’s exam will be a little more quantitative and will refer to readings and class conversations as well. I will choose a few classes/readings/discussions/visitors and ask your interpretation of what you learned in the process. An example might be, “what does happiness, resource use, and Jevon’s Paradox, have to do with dropping a stuffed animal out of a helicopter in order to get a date?” You’ll have a few of these questions and be invited to write on a few of them.
  • Please read your webpages, as I’ve gone through them and listed comments. Please move all the red comments to the bottom and make the recommendations.
  • Please look through the Ghana Irrigation Webpage. You don’t have to be this good, but this may inspire ideas.
  • Please read this NPR story and the accompanying video about toilets in India. How is the society going about the change process? Do you agree or disagree?
  • In class, I’ll finish the Guateca Failure Talk, and we’ll work on the projects.
  • Make sure you review the second intervention.

Week 10
Monday: Work on final presentations and discuss final exam.
Enter your idea for your final (3rd) self-intervention on the intervention website (accessible from the main class website)

  • Here is the story on the SEF in the broadcast from last weekhttp://mustangnews.net/30-minute-update-student-scales-half-dome-new-parking-rules-incoming-freshman/It starts at 9:35 if you want to skip ahead to it.
  • Consider this question: “what makes it an appropriate or inappropriate technology?” as you read this and be prepared to answer the question “can design save the world?”
  • See the video here and know Paul’s 12 Steps? Do you agree with all of them? Paul Polak’s 12 steps
  • Who is Paul Polak? and What book did he write? What was his original career?: Paul Polak Wikipedia
  • Paul Polak’s “Don’t Bother Trilogy”: Do you agree with them? Are there others you may think of?: Paul Polak’s “Don’t Bother Trilogy”
  • Please read this statement about appropriate technology and see the video below it if you like. Please answer the question: Why is appropriate technology dead? (in Paul Polak’s Opinion), and do YOU think Appropriate Technology is dead?: Appropriate Technology is Dead?
  • Lastly, please consider: “How is your project consistent or not consistent with Paul Polak’s philosophy?”
  • Here is the link to the “This is Water” speech by David Foster-Wallace. The Shortened 10 minute version with actors is https://vimeo.com/188418265but unfortunately leaves out the (in my opinion) very important line that your children will hate you for using up the earths resources and leaving it polluted… I think about Roger’s discussion. For the Full 20 min speech that includes thius statement, please see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI

Wednesday:
Final written exam in class and course redesign.
Post third intervention before midnight on intervention page.

I got two questions delivered to me today. I will consider using them or part of them:
1) Explain in at least 250 words how any of your views have changed after taking this course. Be as specific as you can and, if possible, reference what exactly changed your view. Alternatively, if none of your views have changed, explain why you think they haven’t.
2) Why do you think Bill Gate’s Big Bet is that the lives of poor people will improve more than anyone else’s in the next 15 years?
3) What are some things Dr. Peggy Papathakis has done to improve maternal malnutrition in Malawi?
4) Do you lean towards Paul Polak’s “Don’t Bother Trilogy” or appropriate technology?

Surveys: Please take the university survey for this class. The link was sent to you via Email.

Finals Week – New and Different Final Exam
Potluck and Final Presentation:

Final Presentation: Monday June 12, 4 PM – 7 PM. From the Final Exam Schedule

Final Presentations are at the SEF – Bring a meal, bring a friend if you like. Make sure you bring a plate and fork or chop sticks or whatever you like to use to eat food.