A pedal powered hacksaw for the disabled

Bernard Kiwia is from Arusha, Tanzania. He’s here at Maker Faire Africa as part of the IDDS group that has been building innovative devices for the last couple weeks in Kumasi, Ghana. Today he’s showing his device that he created from an old bicycle and some welded rods. It’s powered by someone sitting in a chair.

Pedal-Powered Hacksaw in Ghana from WhiteAfrican on Vimeo.

It cost Bernard about $45 to create the bicycle powered hacksaw and one day to fabricate.

Bernard’s been a bicycle mechanic for 3 years, and has been teaching students in Tanzania to fix them for the last couple. He was invited to IDDS and met a Guatemalan attendee that had some very interesting designs using bicycles. After seeing those, he realized that he could make similar tools and devices for the needs of people in Arusha.

(more pictures from Maker Faire Africa on Flickr)

Bicycle Hacksaw

Bicycle Hacksaw

Since that time, Bernard has created a windmill, cell phone charger, drill press and a pump – all working off of bicycle parts and mechanisms.

His bicycle powered water pump. It sits by the side of the road for kids to jump on and pedal:
Bicycle powered water pump

A chair made from bicycle parts:
A chair made from bicycle parts - Tanzania

Author: Erik Hersman

Erik is the owner of White African, a blog about technology and Africa. He is the co-founder of Zangu, a new web and mobile phone application that he hopes will change communication in Africa. AfriGadget is another web project of his, not that he doesn't have enough of those already...

One thought on “A pedal powered hacksaw for the disabled”

  1. I can understand how it changes the way one can cut the wood but the design needs a lot more fine tuning. If you have hands, you should be able to use a hacksaw. Now if this was set up in such a way that one can use only the legs to cut then it would be beneficial for the disabled.

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