By grassroots reporter Thandile Ntlebi - One of the COSAT (Center of Science and Technology) learners, 17 years old, living in Township Khayelitsha, South Africa. Visit more of Thandile’s stories on Students for Humanity

Young boys are starting to realize their dreams and do what ever they can to make sure that those dreams come true even if they must get themselves dirty.

It’s Saturday around 11am, the community is very peaceful and the quietness makes parents wonder what their kids are up to. Within hours you hear whistles and names being called. Your boy is watching TV until his name is being called; he jumps up and runs as fast as a cheetah.

Around 1pm the field is full of people, as if there will be a fight or a community meeting. When you check it’s just young boys sorting themselves into two teams. After the argument of who should play and in which position, they settle down. The teams go to their side of the field to plan how they are going to win the match. The minimum of players is four; the maximum is eleven players for each team.

The referee blows his whistle and the game begins. Fans give courage to their players by cheering. They make them feel proud and confident. What is amazing is the ball and the field they are playing on. These boys do not have a coach or someone telling them what to do. They don’t have money to buy a soccer ball….. they make it on their own.

This how the ball is made:

Firstly you look for old clothes or blankets. Then you put a few condoms around, which you blow up with your mouth, but not with too much air. Just so it’s the same size as a soccer ball. After this you put either a plastic bag or a piece of old clothing over the condom. Then to make it strong, you tear up the old clothing or blanket into long strips and tie the strips all around the condom to strengthen the shape of the ball and make it heavier. Once you can feel it bounces well, you take a strong plastic bag and wrap it around the ball. Lastly you reinforce it by wrapping strong rope or tire wire around it.

Maybe you are surprised but let me tell you about the field. It is not a play ground or a park but it is a field that is full of drains and the half of it has a long grass and some kind of a wetland and a dumping place. And as we all know that when you are playing soccer you need scoring nets. These boys don’t have scoring nets, but take wood or cardboard that is in the carpet and make poles.

In the end some go home smiling and singing winners songs and others go home in a way sad but still planning how to beat them tomorrow.

These boys are young and know nothing about suffering or what the world is going to bring them in the future. But all they know they want to be famous soccer players and being admired by the world. They come from a poor back ground and they didn’t choose to be there but they can try by all means to change it and make their future as bright as it can be.

Maybe you think I’m crazy but hey, they are the ones who are building things from scratch and are creative if they don’t have money to buy what they need. They are the ones who get their selves dirty just to be seen as a soccer player. These are geniuses don’t you think so?

The credits of the soccer ball photo go to our friend Michiel Van Balen

Honey is one of the most valuable products of the drylands of Africa. It can be obtained by following a little bird called a honey guide to a bees nest in a tree, whereupon one raids the hive. Or bees can be farmed…in most places a bee keeper simply hollows out logs to make perfectly acceptable hives for local consumption. for commercial purposes however, Langstroth hives are universally thought to be superior to the traditional log hives found in Africa – the box shape make them easy to stack and move around,  and the movable frames guide bees to build combs in an organized manner making comb extraction easy. These hives also have a queen excluder, a mesh grid, usually made of wire or plastic, sized such that worker bees can pass through but the bigger queens cant. This keeps the queen from laying eggs in the honey combs called supers leading to cleaner honey. There are so many NGO’s, GOs and religious Orgs introducing these bright yellow langstroth hives across the Kenyan landscape.They don’t always catch on though - in rural areas people still prefer the logs…

Traditional hive

Traditional log hives are hollowed out logs usually cut from specific tree species with the permission of the local chief. They are hung high in trees and the inside is rubbed with leaves of plants that attract bees – a practice that has been going on for eons. The bees enter the hives through a tiny hole and build their combs willy nilly throughout the space, it’s inefficient and the honey is of a lower quality as the larvae are all mixed up with the honey combs. Not very good for a business approach… or should I say Beesness?.

Langstroth hive in Baringo Kenya

Logic would suggest that the Langstroth hives which produce cleaner honey and they save trees should be favoured right? Wrong! These modern hives are produced by experts in cities and cost a good $100 – far beyond the reach of anyone living in rural Kenya. It’s also rumoured that these hives are easily broken into by honey badgers, over heat in the dry climate of north Kenya driving bees away, and are expensive to maintain. On a personal note, I for one, find them extremely ugly too.

Modified traditional hive

One bee keeping cooperative in Bogoria has figured out a cunning way of modifying traditional log hives to produce more honey. A bee excluder is made using coffee mesh.

Symon demonstrated how beeswax tracks are laid down to guide the bees where to build their combs in neat lines. Cost? One third of the Langstroth hive.

Bucket of raw honey

The honey is collected at night by naked men (yes totally naked …) they say that this prevents one from getting bees stuck in your clothing… I asked about the possibility of getting stung in sensitive places, they said the bees were far too civilized for that…but yes, people had fallen from the trees and been found comatose and butt naked at the tree base…

Honey extractor

Raw honey with comb is sold to the local cooperative where wax is separated from honey. The machine is another jua kali item bought in a workshop in Nairobi.

Home made bee smoker

Bees are smoked out of the hive using a home made smoker.

Production by 40 bee keepers was 8 tons last year, each Kg of raw honey was bought by the cooperative for Ksh 80 ($1), and sold on raw at Ksh 100, or processed and honey sold at Ksh 600 per kg ($8).

8 tons of raw honey were collected in 2008 – this is valued at Ksh640,000 for the 40 bee keepers in the business.

The wax is not wasted but converted into candles which sell for Ksh 10 each ($ 0.12).

Candle making gadget

Using a jua kali gadget for making candles, comprising a string, a piece of conduit pipe and two beer caps….ingenious!

Bees wax candle

Producing the sweetest smelling cheapest candles I’ve ever used. They claim they burn much longer than paraffin candles. Besides they smell delicious

Some sweet facts

· The dry lands of Kenya are the important honey producing districts in Kenya – the semi arid climate, diversity of flowering plants and easy access to fresh water makes it perfect for bees. Kenya is the fourth largest producer of honey in Africa 22,000 tons, China is the worlds largest producer at 299,000 tons (USA produces 70,000 tons) (figures for 2005).

· The group in Baringo produced 8 tons of honey last year.

I love their motto for hard work - "never expect magic from no where".

· Kenya is a world center of bee diversity with over 3,000 species (about 10% of the worlds total number of species)

· Only 150 species or thereabouts produce honey in Kenya.

· Contrary to popular belief, most bee species are harmless… they have no stings

· The Kalenjin people immunize themselves to bees by purposely stinging babies with bees

· In many pats of Africa, honey is an important component of dowry or bride price – a kilogram being made as part payment for the bride – symbolic of the sweetness of sex - or so I’m told

· Bees pollinate most of the crops that we eat

· Bee keeping is most productive in natural habitats, and is a one of the few forms of resource extraction that does not destroy the environment.

The sour facts

· Bees in USA and Europe are disappearing fast – a condition described as colony collapse disorder (ie. Nobody knows why it’s happening). Africa is unaffected so far making honey production a very sweet deal.

The Swahili bed was in a recent article on MAKE Magazine (a publication that inspired AfriGadget’s creation). In it they discuss why this style of bed is so useful on the hot and humid East African coast.

“In Kenya, the most common and most useful piece of furniture is the rot- and bedbug-resistant Swahili bed.”

“In most houses, you can only find one type of furniture: the Swahili bed. It’s used as a couch, bed, table, and everything else. It’s comfortable and perfect for the hot, humid climate.”

The beds are made from locally grown mvuli or mbamba kofi trees, then straps are created out of palmetto leaves which are soaked in salt water and woven into rope.

Years ago I used to export furniture like this from East Africa, so it’s something that I happen to know quite a bit about. Which provides yet another lesson for those of us who live, or work, in Africa. That is, items that seem mundane to us, as we live our lives in Africa, can be quite exceptional if we only stop to really look.

(via Timbuktu Chronicles)

Katharine Houreld has filed an AP story describing how the Ol Pejeta Conservancy, a private game reserve ranch in Kenya and Save the Elephants, an NGO dedicated to the survival of the species are using the combination of a GSM/GPS based home brew animal collar solution to track and monitor movements of elephants and other animals.

A pilot project placed an electonic collar containing GPS and GSM units on Kimani, a bull elephant who was the last surviving member of a 5 elephant group with a penchant for raiding farms to eat crops. This collar allowed park rangers to track the elephant’s movements using Google Earth / Google Maps. The project also allowed park authorities to monitor animal locations at all times and acted as a deterrent against the poaching of this important resource.

Crop raiding is a huge problem on farms bordering parks and reserves as a herd of elephants or other animals can wipe out entire crops on a single night destroying the livelihoods of the farm owners.

The coolest side benefit of the product though was when the project team figured out that they could create a virtual “geo-fence” and trigger alerts whenever Kimani the elephant stepped outside this virtual fence - an occurrence that indicated that he was probably on his way to a village to carry out some crop raiding.

The set up used a hardware and software solution that sends text based messages in real time with location data over GSM to park rangers whenever Kimani approaches a park fence that is close to a farm.

This is yet another great example of why the use of mobile phones continue to be the computing platform of choice in many ingenious and innovative homebrew technology solutions in Africa.

Click through the links below to articles and video about this project.

How Save the Elephants is using Google Earth / Google Maps to track elephant movements.

Video on how the solution works

“I feel good when I do these things.”

One of my favorite stories on AfriGadget has been of Philip Isohe and his hobby of making very detailed (and working) model airplanes and buses made from scratch. Earlier this year, the ArtBots Show contacted me to get Philip to create one for them that they could show at their annual show in Dublin, Ireland that is happening this weekend. The airplane will be given away as a prize at the show.

They also asked me to create a video of Philip to use at the show:

Philip with the final airplane, painted and working:

The original story of Philip, done last summer.
More images on Zoopy and our Flickr group.

Or How to get your camel milk to market in 40 degree C climate.

My brother Dominic Wanjihia invented this gadget which he calls Fine Lined Evaporative Cooler, for rural application in Somalia - the cooling of camels milk for transportation . He was working on a project for VETAID, Somali Pastoral Dairy Development Program - SPDDP,in Burao, Somalia June 2008. All this content belongs to Dominic who has allowed me to post it here- please seek his permission to use this content elsewhere dwanjihia@yahoo.com

Cool-box design Fine Lined Evaporative cooler

Evaporative cooling technology

The evaporative cooling concept has been used for centuries in countless applications. Cooling occurs when a fluid changes state from liquid to vapor. Put simply, evaporation. In order to evaporate, the liquid requires energy or heat. It acquires this heat energy from its immediate surrounding. As the surrounding gives up this heat, it lowers in temperature or cools.

The rate at which evaporation occurs depends largely on two main factors, the amount of heat available and the humidity in the air.

The cooler must also be shaded from direct sunlight otherwise the surfaces absorb UV heat and warms up, becoming ineffective as a cooler.

In short

Evaporative cooling devices work most efficiently in windy, dry and shaded conditions

Charcoal cooler

Everyone knows how to make charcoal fridges. After carrying out extensive tests on evaporative coolers in hot arid Burao, Somaliland, with day temperatures as high as 36^OC in the shade, the charcoal would absorb ambient heat from the air and as opposed to cooling, would warm up the interior compartment.

Imagine wearing a wet thick winter jacket under the palms at a breezy beach. The jacket acts as a wetsuit and will insulate your body preventing heat from escaping.

Fine lined cooler

However, imagine wearing a wet skintight t-shirt in similar conditions. The water evaporates quite rapidly and cools your body.

I applied this concept to the cooler prototype pictured and achieved startling results. The cooler would drop as low as 15.5^OC at night when temperatures averaged 25^OC and maintain under 17^OC during the day at average temps of + 32^OC.

Evapocooler

Construction

An elevated metal box is lined interior and exterior with a fabric. In this case I used locally available corrugated galvanized iron sheets for the container and sisal sacking fabric for lining. The upper ends of the fabric overhang in a water trough that rings the top of the cooler. Capillary action causes the water to slowly trickle over the inner and outer surfaces. A small vent keeps the interior air circulating and wind guides or tunnels direct air flow over the exterior surfaces. A low speed small solar powered fan can be incorporated in areas where there is not a constant breeze.

How it works

The circulating air in the interior causes evaporation on the wet surfaces. The necessary energy is acquired from the contents hence cooling them and is transfers to the iron sides.

Wind guides or tunnels direct an airflow over the external sides. The evaporation that occurs acquires energy from the sides causing further cooling of the interior.

Convection current system to increase water bath cooling

Construction design

Cool-box with water-bath interior for rapid milk cooling application– Collection Point Cooler

Walk-in cold-room for vegetable storage

Vehicle mounted for long distance transporters

Features (Comparison to conventional charcoal coolers)

Very simple construction

Corrugated galvanized iron or GI sheets increase the surface area

Wind tunnels guide air flow efficiently over evaporation surfaces

Air flow coolers at tunnel entrances

Being galvanized, the sheets are long lasting

GI sheets are affordable and available in most rural areas

Secondhand sacking fabric is available in virtually every vegetable market

The simple capillary action dripping system replaces more complicated dripping apparatus

Convection current system to increase water-bath cooling efficiency

Cool box design with waterbath for rapid drop in temperature of milk

The design simplified

In hot arid regions, cooling the warm ambient air before it reaches the wet evaporation surfaces increase efficiency. Note. Setup for airflow from either direction

level coolers – achieved low’s of 16OC at ambient temp of 30OC +

Rapid Temperature Drop Test 4 lts boiling water in aluminum milk churn placed in water-bath at 16OC

For further information and other rural development concepts and innovative designs, Dom can be reached on

mobile tel +254 722 700 530 dwanjihia@yahoo.com

Morris Mbetsa, an 18 year old self-taught inventor with no formal electronics training from the coastal tourist town of Mombasa on the Indian Ocean in Kenya, has invented the “Block & Track”, a mobile phone-based anti-theft device and vehicle tracking system.

The system, that Mbetsa created by combining technology from projects that he has completed in the past, uses a combination of voice, DTMF and SMS text messages over cell-based phone service to carry codes and messages that allow control of some of a vehicles’ electrical systems including the ignition to manage vehicle activation and disabling remotely in real time.

Another feature of the system is the capacity to poll the vehicle owner by mobile phone for permission to start when the ignition is turned in real time as well as eavesdrop on conversation in the vehicle.

Mbetsa is now looking for funding to commercially develop his proof of concept and bring it to the market as reported on this video carried on the Kenya Television Network earlier this year.

via 69MB.

Jim is a musician, videographer and member of the Kenyan animation trio Just-A-Band. He needed a consistent light source for his video shoots, and as he puts it…
1. the sun is REALLY powerful
2. but very unpredictable

So he decided to create his own lighting equipment from easily available components that included:

1. 2 cardboard boxes (20/-)
2. 15 bulb holders (approx. 150/- each)
3. energy saving bulbs (the 23-watt ‘cool daylight’ types - 450/- each. Ouch.)
4. a roll of aluminium foil (approx. 200/-)
5. lots of cellotape/masking tape

With the help of his friend Kevin who is an electrician, he went from this

and

To

Contrast his total cost of approximately 7000 Kenya shillings (about $113) with Tungsten lights being sold in Nairobi, Kenya for 20,000 Ksh (about $320), this is a neat DIY project that not only saved him some money, but also shows the African Ingenuity we are always excited about.

Check out more pics and the rest of his post on his blog.

The Bamboo Bike, an endeavour that aims at building bicycles in a sustainable fashion using bamboo as the primary construction material, is a joint project run by Craig Calfree of Calfree Design, a high tech bicycle design firm based in California and The Earth Institute at Columbia University.

The bicycle is the primary mode of transport in Africa and it is used for everything from personal transportation to moving medicine and the sick to hospital. Sadly, the design used in most of Africa has not changed for the last 40 years to take into account the different ways in which the bicycle is used. In fact, most bikes in use in most of Africa today are based on a colonial British design tailored to individuals travelling short distances on smooth roads.

While making bike frames based on bamboo is not a new idea, most bamboo frame designs simply use bamboo for construction material in a traditional bike frame design. Leveraging the unique properties of bamboo such as its strength and flexibility to meet the specific needs of populations local to various parts of Africa is one of the primary rationale behind the Bamboo Bike project.

The team working on the Bamboo Bike project in the US, Ghana and Kenya among other locations have a interesting blog (last updated in the summer of 2007) that chronicles the struggles of the project team while on site in Africa.

Project gear including Bamboo Bikes and clothing is available on the Bamboo Bike and Calfree Design websites.

Yahoo! News (among other sources) carries a story from October 21st about Mubarak Muhammad Abdullahi of the Kano Plains of Nigeria who has built a working helicopter over the last 8 months using scrap aluminum and parts from a Honda Civic, an old Toyota and from the remains of a crashed Boeing 747.

This inventor has had no formal training in flying and his helicopter has never flown higher than 7 feet of the ground. In an interview, he talks about how the machine works:

“You start it, allow it to run for a minute or two and you then shift the accelerator forward and the propeller on top begins to spin. The further you shift the accelerator the faster it goes and once you reach 300 rmp you press the joystick and it takes off,”

Mubarak is ambitious however and has embarked on a new project to build a better helicopter that will be able to make 3 hour flights. He hopes to get support for his project from the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and other Nigerian government bodies.