University of Michigan BLUELab Guatemala Team

Starting fall 2008 a group of dedicated, energetic and really bright students from the University of Michigan  BLUELab accepted a challenge from the Appropriate Technology Collaborative (ATC).  To design a treadle pump using only materials that might be found in Tanzania or another mostly rural African or SE Asian country.  Moreover they would have to document the design such that other NGOs or individuals could easily read their drawings and copy their work.

BLUELab Treadle Pump Prototype

The BLUELab team responded with a robust design + documents that set a new standard in ease of use.  They chose to work with us in Guatemala as an exercise in working with limited resources.

The following is from a letter I sent to our host NGO, AIDG:

The BLUELab team has been working on an open source treadle pump design since the start of school 2008.  They got as far as a prototype or proof of concept model in their workshop, drew up incredibly detailed and easy to read documents and arrived in Guatemala after a daylong delay due to weather in the US.  They also had to cut their visit short by a day on the other end due to flight scheduling problems.

The BLUELab team made up for lost time by being very well organized.  They formed working groups for each component of the assembly.  The reality of building in the developing world was made clear early when certain types of plastic weren’t available, pipe sizes were different from standards in the US and steel parts were also different from standards we have in the shop back home.  Much was redesigned on the fly.

BLUELab worked all day at the AIDG workshop (thank you very much!) and then reviewed the next day’s assignments over a late dinner every night.  They were successful in proving their prototype works on the last day of the build, at the last hour, with their bags already packed and their shuttle waiting.

BLUELab posted their work on their website and within 3 days NGOs from Africa were already asking for copies of their drawings.  We plan on posting the revised design on the ATC website at the end of the semester and BLUELab is considering returning to Guatemala to build the new design.

Guatemala is probably not the place where treadle pumps will make a good business sense, but it is a great place to learn what it is like to build with limited resources.  The experience for the student team, working with people from Guatemala and living embedded in a new culture will change how they view their work.

Documents are available upon request.  We will be publishing the final documents when the BLUELab team is done redesigning based on what we learned in Guatemala.

Treadle Pump Prototype

A team of students from the University of Michigan BLUELab produced their first prototype of a treadle pump in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala last week. There are currently many treadle pumps patented and manufactured by NGOs, but the BLUELab pump is unique in that all the drawings and specifications are available online for free. The goal is to get many NGOs the capacity to manufacture these life enhancing pumps and to have them produced in the countries where they will be used.

The Appropriate Technology Collaborative worked with the BLUELab students providing the design challenge and the opportunity to build their design in a developing country. ATC chose to build the project in Guatemala to simulate building in the countries where the pump will be most appropriate (sub Saharan Africa, South Asia). Guatemala offers the challenge of building with limited resources without the expense and carbon emissions associated with traveling to and building in Tanzania for example.

A shout out to the Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group – Guatemala office, for hosting ATC and BLUELab for the project build. The experience was incredible, the design team worked long hours adapting their design to locally available materials and conditions and produced a working prototype. BLUELab has already started the process of taking what they have learned in Guatemala to improve the design of the pump. The revised drawings will be made available online as soon as they are completed.

The value of Open Source design is that intellectual property and information can be spread quickly. Already there have been inquiries into the pump design from an NGO in Liberia and the pump isn’t yet published on the ATC website. This inquiry is a good indicator of interest in open source appropriate technology design.

Photos from the Treadle Pump Workshop 2009 are available at Picassa BLUELab Photos

The BLUELab has designed a very efficient and low cost treadle pump for use by rural farmers.  Our project here is to check out the constructability of the design in the field using locally available materials.  Already this process has produced very valuable information on how to design for construction in the developing world.

We got to Xela Sunday night.  The BLUELab team got a chance to see the Parque Central area of Xela and we stopped in at El Balcon in Pasaje Enrique to look out over Parque Central and much of Xela.  The night sky was mostly clear and we could see the volcanic peaks that surround the city in the distance.

Monday we found out that we couldn’t start work at the AIDG workshop till the PM so we organized teams who will work on sub-assemblies and review the build process.  When Jose Ordonez arrived from AIDG several of us took off in the AIDG pickup truck to purchase materials.

Jose doesn’t drive so Ben Connor Barrie took the honors which ended up with Ben driving in rush hour traffic with 6 meter lengths of steel on the roof and students riding in the back.  Ben managed to merge into a packed and fast moving round-about and get out at the right exit while taking directions in Spanish.

The build is now under way with the teams working through a few local condition induced design changes.

Photos to follow.

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John is known for his deep commitment to the principles of sustainable design, social justice, economic development and the creation of human centered products.  John has contributed to the design, specification and construction of environmental projects throughout North America.  His projects include work with Warner Bros. Studios, the United States Air Force and the Xela Teco workshop in Guatemala.

John edits www.SustainableDesignUpdate.com where he posts frequently on energy, sustainability and social justice.  He also writes about appropriate technology at www.apptechdesign.org.

John Barrie speaks often at workshops on appropriate technology, sustainable energy efficient design, architectural design, and design for developing countries.

Thank you for visiting the John Barrie Website.  While we are under construction please visit our other sites:

Sustainable Design Update

The Appropriate Technology Collaborative

Thank you and please stop back soon to see the new John Barrie Website!

Our LED lamps on display

The Appropriate Technology Collaborative recently had some of our products featured at an appropriate technology fair at the University of Michigan’s North Campus. It was great to see so many engineering students engaged in developing technological solutions to improve the lives of people in the developing world.

A model of the prefabricated paper house

Designers at Bauhaus University have developed a low cost paper house that could be used to provide housing for slum dwellers. From the article in Spiegel:

Niemöller is a co-founder of the Swiss company The Wall AG, which holds the patent for material used in the construction of the mini-homes. But, he says, he envisions the houses — called the “Universal World House” — ultimately being produced in the countries where they are needed. And, he says, the sticker price for the 36 square meter (387.5 square foot) structures won’t be more than $5,000 each.

The material used in the construction of the houses mimics the honeycomb pattern used in the manufacture of airplanes and other products for which both weight and strength are important factors. But instead of using aluminium or other alloys, Niemöller used resin-soaked paper processed to form thin, light — yet strong — panels. The material is also an excellent insulator, and is flexible, making it appropriate in areas at risk of earthquakes.

At a price of $5,000 the house is out of range for some of the poorest of the poor. None the less, Nigeria has already put in an order for 2,400 houses.

-Ben Connor Barrie

Photo via: Spiegel

ATC needs your laptops

The Appropriate Technology Collaborative is planning a trip to visit our project partners in Guatemala in February. We would like to bring some gently used, working laptops to a school we will be visiting. If you live in South East Michigan and would like to make a tax deductible laptop donation, drop me an e-mail: ben.connorbarrie@gmail.com.

We are looking for working Windows machines (preferably XP), that are in good working order and have at least a 40 gig hard drive.  Your laptop donation is tax deductible and will be put to good use at a rural school that lacks much needed technology.

For more info please Contact Us

-Ben Connor Barrie

Photo via: SBray

One of our prototype LED lamps

Over the holidays we received our shipment of LED’s and resistors and have been soldering up a storm. We’ve cobbled together a few prototype lamps that are going to be on display at the Developing Nations, Developing Technologies show on North Campus next week. We’ve also sent off some components to our friends at GaS Design so that they can play around with some experimental designs for the lighting system. More updates as they come.

(Note:  The LEDs we use in the field don’t use resistors, instead they feature a high efficiency circuit boards that improve the overall system efficiency by about 25%.) 

-Ben Connor Barrie

The incubator  is heated with headlights

Preterm babies often have difficulty regulating their temperature.  This can lead to organ failure.  Neonatal incubators are an important tool for reducing infant mortality.  Unfortunately for developing nations, modern incubators cost $40,000 and up.  They also tend to have very short life spans in the developing countries where power surges tend to damage their deilcate circuitry.  Fortunately, there is an appropriate technology solution.  The NYTimes is reporting the a consortion of Boston teaching hospitals and engineers have developed a rugged incubator that can be made from recycled car parts for a cost of about $1,000.  From the article:

Mechanically, incubators are simple devices, providing a warm, clean, womblike environment in which a baby can mature (though state-of-the-art models may have accessories like built-in X-ray machines and rotating mattresses). Low birth weight and other problems make it especially difficult for newborns to regulate their body temperature, a condition that can lead to organ failure.

In the car parts incubator, infants born at 32 weeks’ gestation or longer can receive supplemental oxygen while their lungs gain strength, antibiotics if they have infections, and low-lit quiet in which to sleep if their mothers are away or are otherwise unable to hold them. In an emergency, the incubator’s bassinet can be removed and carried to another part of the building or even to another hospital.

In truth, experts say, the developing world doesn’t need more incubators. It needs incubators that work. Over the years, thousands have been donated from rich nations, only to end up in “incubator graveyards” — most broken, some never opened. According to a 2007 study from Duke University, 96 percent of foreign-donated medical equipment fails within five years of donation — mostly because of electrical problems, like voltage surges or brownouts or broken knobs, or because of training problems, like neglecting to send user manuals along with the devices.

-Ben Connor Barrie

The Linux desktop allows for up to 8 users reducing the systems total power usage

Just got back from MSU’s Design Days, where College of Engineering students present their semester projects.  There were a lot of great student projects, including a solar powered vaccine refrigeration system sponsored by ATC.  There were also some other great appropriate technology projects created my the Engineering students.  A group of students known only as “Team 2” had a really neat design to deliver computers to rural Tanzanian classrooms.  Their design uses a single desktop running Linux power up to 8 simultaneous user sessions at different workstations.  Team 2′s description of their project:

Lenovo is supporting development of a system to allow charging of batteries using solar panels, then powering one or more computers, a satellite Internet link, and 4-8 LCD-based seats. Prior work in 480, and by a team of Telecomm students, and by ECE personnel have produced a working system, but it is not maximally power-efficient and lacks the monitoring/control and safety features needed to make it usable in the field. The Fall ’08 MSU team and two EE students from the University of Dar es Salaam will explore technology tradeoffs, internet connectivity tradeoffs, and power monitoring/control, so that a user can look at an LCD panel and LEDs on the main module and determine solar charge rate, present power consumption, time until battery exhausted at current rates, internet connectivity, LAN connectivity, and a variety of fault conditions. Simultaneously, the teams will also implement open-source (Linux-based) software to allow users to browse the Internet, with the capability to restrict access to a specified list of sites.

-Ben Connor Barrie

Photo Credit: Team 2