Emargence Door Exit

Imagineering is what it’s all about – wouldn’t you have wanted to build your own helicopter from scratch when you were 17 years old?

Joseph Omwoyo, a young Kenyan form-four student in Western Kenya, did just that and built his own version, using locally available materials. It doesn’t fly, nor does it look like it will ever take off – but what really matters is that a young boy with limited resources still had the energy to fulfill his dream:

“…Omwoyo says he got the idea while in Form One when he, together with his colleagues, toured the Kisumu Airport, and – during the short time there – the idea of making a chopper stuck to his mind”.

We’re sure that Kenya isn’t the only place where people are trying to build their own aircrafts, BUT! this certainly reminds us of the Kahawa West Aircraft story back in October 2010.

For Joseph, the helicopter may be his own escape from reality, or in his words: “Emargence Door Exit”. Touché!

Update: the original video has been removed by NTVKenya, so we can only hope it will be uploaded again in the next few days.

Retain, Reuse, Rejoice

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So… “what do you do with old billboard posters”, asks Kenyan bloggger Daudi “Mentalacrobatics” Were on his Posterous site – and instantly delivers the following snapshot:

“Apply Nairobi ingenuity and waterproof your house!”

Talking about reusable materials, here’s another popular reuse: a football / soccer ball made using old plastic bags, newspapers and sisal string. Demonstrated by the kids at The Nest Home, a children’s home in Limuru, Kenya:

The Nest Home ball
The Nest Home ball
The Nest Home ball
The Nest Home ball
The Nest Home ball
The Nest Home ball

It’s cheap, it works, it wins! 🙂

We actually prefer these creative toys as the kids learn how to MAKE things – instead of just buying cheap Chinese toys.

If you’re interested in “toys made from trash”, please also have a look at this wonderful website run by Indian toy inventor Arvind Gupta.

Lamutiki

Anyone remembers David Mayer de Rothschild’s Plastiki, “a 60 feet (18 m) catamaran made out of 12,500 reclaimed plastic bottles and other recycled PET plastic and waste products” that successfully conquered the Pacific Ocean last year?

Well, it seems this young man from Lamu (Kenya) had a similar idea and is in the process of building his own plastic bottle boat. Our reader Arthur Buliva from Kenya just sent us these pictures with the following explanation:

I was in Lamu recently and came across this man who was making a boat out of plastic bottles and old slippers. He was not yet finished with it yet but I took the few photos of the product that I could.

He says that he collects plastic water bottles that the tourists throw on the beach. He also wakes up early in the morning to collect bottles washed ashore from the sea. With these he has constructed the (in his own words, “first in its kind”) boat.

He water-proofs it by sealing the gaps with used slippers collected in the very same way. Then boils tar in order to glue the components all together.

Kenya believe it? 🙂

(all images kindly shared by Arthur Buliva under a CC-SA licence – thx!)

Remote Controlled Toy ATV

Miniature versions of vehicles are as popular with kids in Cameroon as anywhere else. Adult craftsmen across the continent use materials such as wire, beads and recycled cans to create toy bicycles, trucks and airplanes—many of which transcend the level of children’s toys and are nothing short of art objects. Indeed, some of these creations are produced for corporate clients and international buyers.

No less ingenious and fascinating are toys created by and for kids themselves, usually from the simplest of materials and tools. This includes items like toy tractors (Kenya) and SUVs (Uganda) made from recycled plastic bottles.

Toy RC car made from recycled materials

School kids in Buea, CameroonAnother view of the car

In Cameroon, one such popular toy crafted by kids is a ‘remote controlled’ car or ATV. These are often built from discarded flip-flops (slippers), sardine tins, bamboo or raffia palm, electrical conduit (pipe), rubber and bits of string. A variation on this theme that incorporates a split bamboo steering column and a full-sized wire steering wheel was blogged by Steve in the northwest of the country.

It’s not difficult to spot toy cars like this being piloted by kids in Cameroon—the trick is usually being able to catch up with them to photograph one. A big advantage of this design is its ability to handle rough terrain when being driven at speed. The bamboo frame, chunky tires and rubber fasteners suck up bumps in the road like a 4WD Toyota. The proud builder of this R/C all-terrain vehicle paused long enough to demonstrate his creation for me.