[OLPC India] [Community-news] OLPC News 2007-10-20

[Sameer Verma]

Arjun Sarwal wrote:
> Hi Jaya,
>
> We plan to drive a dynamo (taken from an old Fiat)  through a system 
> of belts and pulleys using cows/cattle.
>
> Some initial pics here
> http://dev.laptop.org/~arjs/cp1.JPG 
> <http://dev.laptop.org/%7Earjs/cp1.JPG>
> http://dev.laptop.org/~arjs/cp2.JPG 
> <http://dev.laptop.org/%7Earjs/cp2.JPG>
>
> We are currently working on finalizing the mechanical and electrical 
> design aspects.
>
> regards,
> Arjun
>


Way cool!!!

This reminds me of the days (almost in a previous life) when I would go 
to my grandmother's place and run a pair of oxen to draw water using a 
persian wheel. Of course, we were no where close to doing this on a 
daily basis, but it was quite the task. Minding oxen that go around a 
circular path for hours is a bit mind-numbing. However, it produced very 
low rpm, but steady power. Do you guys know if this will be used to 
charge a bank of batteries directly, or will it be used to store energy 
and use it later.

Burning biogas from cow dung will require a lot more in the way of 
infrastructure. We have had one at my grandmother's since the mid 1970s. 
We have had to change the drums several times because they rust easily.

http://sameerverma.org/blog/?postid=122

I suppose you could pipe the gas into a diesel generator (which are 
fairly common) with the appropriate carburettor to mix biogas and air.

On a related note, I wonder if someone has looked at the Play Pump 
project where they use merry-go-rounds in school to pump water into an 
overhead tank. Kids supposedly love to go to school because they get to 
play in the morning before going to class and every spin of the 
merry-go-round pumps water!

A play pump like setup could be used to charge batteries just like 
Arjun's cow power effort.

http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/rough/2005/10/south_africa_th.html

Sameer

-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/