Posted on 09/14/2008 10:41:28 AM PDT by TheDon
Engineering students at BYU are shedding a little light on science and fun in a small village in Ghana. They've installed an electricity-generating merry-go-round at a school there and the effort has the whole town beaming.
Most of the villages and schools in Ghana don't have electricity. The schools get dark when natural light disappears, and homework is hard to do when students can't see. Plugging into the country's power grid isn't an option at this time, so with the help of some BYU students, a company called Empowered Playgrounds came up with a bright idea: a merry-go-round that produces electricity.
The children in Essam, Ghana had never seen a merry-go-round, let alone played on one.
BYU engineering student Eliza Padilla said, “They'd never felt being spun by a force. They didn't know how to push the merry-go-round.”
But it is no ordinary merry-go-round. “For every time they go around the pit of the playground, the generator underneath will spin 50 times and that will produce electricity, which will get stored in a battery,” Padilla said.
...
Markham said, “An active 10-year-old can put out about 100 watts of energy for maybe 20 minutes sustained. I didn't want it to be a work wheel, I wanted it to be a merry-go-round.”
The school's 200 children will share 50 batteries that they can take home at night.
“It's like a miracle, because we're always thinking about how to equip the children with a lamp. We are very grateful to BYU,” said N.A. Litson-Dodoo, Principal at Golden Sunbeam School in Essam Village, Ghana.
Padilla said, “I think this project has affected everyone who has touched it.”
Empower Playgrounds is working on five more merry-go-rounds for schools in Ghana. The company plans on installing them this August.
(Excerpt) Read more at abc4.com ...
LOL! Be nice. I think it is a cool project. We take lighting and electricity for granted in America, but in Ghana and many places in Africa they don’t have either. Students are unable to study because they don’t have light. I’ve read articles where students would go to international airports at night to study by the airport lights!
If I was able to generate energy from just my four kids, I don’t think I’d ever have a power bill.
This is a great idea.
Agreed. Play to learn! Playing on the merry go round provides electricity by which to study.
Same theme twenty years later in...
Africa needs property rights and more weapons in ordinary hands. Not another generation of white man's burden doo gooder projects.
We need to put all the unemployed slackers on power generating bikes and have them peddle for 8 hours a day....then you can have your unemployment check.
Wait til Obama gets ahold of this!
I'll go get the popcorn.
Wouldn’t those squeeze/crank led flashlights be a lot cheaper to send/distribute, and easier to carry?
UGANDA CHRISTIAN CHURCHES
New Victory Child Care- Uganda is an independent, indigenous non-governmental organization with the prime mandate of providing an education -- formal and/or vocational -- to desperately poor, neglected and forgotten orphans whose parents have died of AIDS. NVCC assists children with AIDS and widows that have lost their spouses to AIDS and most of them HIV+ themselves.
Orphan Placement
NVCC moves children from the streets into families. African culture has not traditionally institutionalized orphans. NVCC places a great value on placing children with foster families providing mother and/or fathers who care for them responsibly.
Orphan Education
NVCC supports children with direct school sponsorship funding, school admission and supplies to children who otherwise would be on the streets. These children receive not only an education but a safe mentoring atmosphere through school to help them grow and mature. For many Uganda children, the expense of the required uniform is enough to prevent them from attending school.
Statement of Faith
WHAT WE BELIEVE
IN ESSENTIALS WE HAVE UNITY
“There is one body and one Spirit . . .there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father of us all. Eph. 4:4-6
" Because God gives us eternal life through Jesus Christ, the true believer is secure in that salvation for eternity. If you have been genuinely saved, you cannot “lose” it. Salvation is maintained by the grace and power of God, not by the self-effort of the Christian. It is the grace and keeping power of God that gives us this security."
While this is NOT my personal denomination, it is an example of the kinds of charitable work done by Christian churches all across the globe.
How about:
Environmentalists Find Use for Black People:
Planned Parenthood in Crisis
What an awesome project. The idea that the kids can take the batteries home at night is pure genius.
I like your tagline! Spot on!
The merry-go-round company is an arm of the LDS church. The cost per school is on the order of $7000.
On a “NewsVOA (VOICE OF AMERICA”)site I found the following:
“Bikes Power Computers, Telephones in Developing World
Washington
09 August 2006
An old invention is taking on a new use to bring phone and computer services to rural areas. VOA Frank Ling reports on efforts to power these systems using renewable energy and bike power.
The World Bank says that billions of people in underdeveloped countries do not have access to basic communication services, necessary for meeting the health, educational, and economic goals of people around the world.
Communication networks, present everywhere in industrialized countries, are not frequently installed in remote areas due to high costs and lack of durability. In addition, rural places do not have reliable electricity to power them.
But a new non-profit company, called Inveneo, is now offering inexpensive ways to install and power these networks.
Laura Mellow is with Inveneo in San Franciso, California and says her company’s systems are designed to survive dusty and rugged outdoor environments and consume little power. Mellow says that renewable energy sources, which do not require fossil fuels, can power their devices.
“Inveneo was founded to bring communication technologies to people in environments who have no access to it. Our philosophy is that communications is just such a powerful tool in terms of connecting people’s lives and giving them the opportunity and the means to make improvements through education or through business,” she said.
Solar power is the renewable energy source of choice most of the time.
“Solar is a great technology to use in sunny environments but it’s difficult in environments where you are in a rainforest for example, where the treetops are very high and it’s very dense,” she noted. “There’s also wind but that requires a location that has fairly consistent wind.”
Instead, Mellow says that bicycles, which are the main mode of transportation in many parts of the world, are an ideal source of power for communication networks.
“So if it’s monsoon season and there is three or four days of no sunlight, you can use it as a backup,” she added. “Or if you’ve got heavy computing requirements. It’s a bicycle that is connected to a generator that powers a battery and the system runs off the battery. For about 15 minutes of pedaling time you get one hour of computing time.”
Inveneo’s first system was installed in Uganda last year, connecting five villages through a wireless network. Mellow says villagers are using the system to improve their businesses.
“The people use it to talk to each other,” she explained. “They use it to call surrounding villages, the market towns, to find out the best prices for their products. Then they go there and sell theirs. They also coordinate with each other so that they can pool their crops and take it to villages where they can take it to villages where they can get more money for their crops based on volume.”
The villagers are also using the computers to help their children find schools and scholarships.” “
If I were to favor any method I believe this one beats merry-go-rounds. The poorest countris rely upon bicycles for transportation and even light frieght hauling. Bicycles would be available year round for use and not just by children at school during the school term. In addition, what is owned by the individual always seems to better utilized than what is community property.
Merry-go-rounds and other play equipment for electricity generation seems the least efficient use of funds even if it does function.
I'd say this more a matter of the wealthy helping the poor. I'd hardly label it the "white man's burden". One man had a clever way to help out poor communities, I don't think it should be nixed because the guy is not African.
As you correctly point out, the nations of Africa will have to fix themselves. That does not relieve us of our obligations as christians to help the poor.
An interesting idea. I wonder if it was considered.
LOL! Hopefully, in a more intellectual sense. :-)
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