The Mukombe – Zimbabwe’s Tippy Tap

Dr. Peter Morgan, winner of the 2013 Stockholm Water Prize and resident of Zimbabwe, recently shared the design of The Mukombe on the forum of the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance. The Mukombe is a hand washing device – a “tippy tap” as it is commonly known within the Water, Sanitation & Hygiene (WASH) scene – as it just requires a little tip to provide the user with just enough water to wash the hands. In water-arid areas, such a simple device can be essential to hygiene.

Naturally occuring Mukombe

“(The Mukombe) was first conceived by Dr Jim Watt when he worked in Zimbabwe as a Salvation Army doctor in Chiweshe in the late 1970′s. (…) This vegetable had a hard shell and could be used as a gourd or calabash for carrying water and other commodities. It is commonly grown in the fields. The great innovation was to turn this common plant into a hand washing device. (…) Many years ago I made a fibre glass replica of this remarkably simple and elegant device. Many if not most natural plants did not have the right shape. Using the fibre glass replica with its idealised shape, Prodorite in Harare have been able to mass produce the product. The mukombe holds about 2 litres of water and can provide enough water in a single filling to give about 35 hand washes.”

How the Mukombe works (drawings by Jim Watt)

“Modifications are made to the naturally occurring Mukombe. An opening is made in the top and a cork or plug is placed at the end of the neck as shown above, with a small opening for water to drain. Holes are drilled into the top of the mukombe and a string passed through. The mukombe is suspended by the string so that it lies at a special angle. The mukombe is filled with water and then tipped up so that some water passes up the neck. When the mukombe comes to its resting position again, some water is left at the end of the neck and slowly drains out. It is this water which is used to wash the hands. The flow stops automatically when the small reservoir in the neck runs out.” (source)

Use at a school

The beauty of the Makombe over other tippy taps is that the design is based on a naturally grown product and that it only uses a very little amount of water. Plus: you can hang it anywhere, there is no need for an advanced construction. Clearly another winner in the “it’s cheap, it works, it wins”-category.

Avid readers may remember Dr. Morgan as the inventor of the Blair Ventilated Improved Pit (VIP) Latrine, which has meanwhile been adapted as the national standard by the government of Zimbabe.

You are what you breathe

When was the last time you noticed the air you are breathing ? Do you know how it affects you and your health?

air pollution Egypt

Egypt leads the list of the most polluted cities in the world, in terms of particulate matter. Moreover, according to the latest report by the WHO, every Cairo resident’s daily share of air pollution is equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.

This motivated the makers from icealex hub in Alexandria Egypt to work on solving this global problem.

Their solution: Build an air quality monitoring kit

afrimakers air pollution kit

The kit uses Arduino, gas, humidity and temperature sensors, RGB LEDs and an LCD screen to detect and measure air pollution. The Afrimakers team wishes to understand and map pollutants in their local environment and identify main pollution sources and best strategies of individual protection.

The idea was inspired by the Air Quality Egg project, which is based on Arduino, allowing anybody on the world to monitor CO2 and NO2 levels around his house, and share the results online, to be compared with the rest of the world records.

afrigadget-air-quality-monitoring-kit

What distinguishes the prototype designed by the Afrimakers team from the AirQuality Egg’s, is the reduced cost and the outreach to local schools, communities of makers and learning centers for children. The same components of the kit can be used for many other projects which also reduces the investment for schools.

The team has a detailed documentation for this project and aims to create several learning modules for this project that could be used in schools and video tutorials.

This week, the project developers are visiting the makers in Nairobi and organizing a series of workshops in collaboration with Fablab Nairobi and iHub in order to improve their prototype and reflect about how it can be locally-driven.

If you would like to build your own air pollution monitor you can follow the instructions made by the icealex team. In case you don’t have access to the same sensors or materials we encourage you to “fork” their project here and and adapt it to your local resources.

A main goal of the team and their project is to encourage makers and local communities to dream, make and share meaningful projects that are solving big problems and are extremely affordable.

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Afrimakers is an initiative to empower African makers to develop sustainable projects and provide solution for local challenges by training more than 100 mentors in 10 African countries on running science & tech workshops for private and public schools students.

afrigadget-afrimakers

A Urine Powered Generator

Possibly one of the more unexpected products at Maker Faire Africa this year in Lagos is a urine powered generator, created by four girls. The girls are Duro-Aina Adebola (14), Akindele Abiola (14), Faleke Oluwatoyin (14) and Bello Eniola (15).

1 Liter of urine gives you 6 hours of electricity.

The system works like this:

  • Urine is put into an electrolytic cell, which separates out the hydrogen.
  • The hydrogen goes into a water filter for purification, which then gets pushed into the gas cylinder.
  • The gas cylinder pushes hydrogen into a cylinder of liquid borax, which is used to remove the moisture from the hydrogen gas.
  • This purified hydrogen gas is pushed into the generator.

Along the whole way there are one-way valves for security, but let’s be honest that this is something of an explosive device…

Blade-less wind turbine blows fresh air into power generation

A guest post by Kahenya, Founder of Simple Community

The name William Kamkwamba might not sound familiar to many, but he is one of the most significant technology game changers in Africa. He did not design the most glamorous device on the planet, and neither was his creation unique. However, it was extremely significant.

Using just a book, Kamkwamba, now 25, designed and built a windmill that generated electricity and pumped water in his home village in Malawi. This was significant because he proved that it was possible to build things with instant grassroots impact that did not require a business plan, a website, a marketing strategy, a funding strategy or even a glamorous launch. He gained instant fame.

Kamkwamba managed to ensure that he could meet his immediate power needs using tree branches and scrap material. He was able to generate electricity and pump water using pure green energy. That was a decade ago.

Enter the future and a decade later, we have the Saphonian Blade-less wind turbines – another African design, this time from Tunisia. It focuses on clean energy.

The inventing company, Saphon Energy, led by Mr Anis Aouini, understood that older generation turbines, built in Europe, had some fundamental flaws that no-one had resolved.

For one, they generated a lot of noise and vibration. There is the unmistakable whirring, and if you live next to one, unless it is not in motion, you could have sleepless nights before getting used to the sound.  They also unwittingly kill a lot of birds. Unaware birds collide with the blades and get killed.

Not the Saphonian. It has a sail shaped body, similar in concept to sails on a boat or dhow, which makes it bladeless. The unit does not have the famous rotating blades common with older generation turbines and windmills. Even better, the advantages are not limited to aesthetics or providing environment friendly energy. The Saphonian eliminates inefficiencies usually created by moving parts in a windmill.

The lack of blades and other rotating gears means that there is very little aerodynamic energy, and this results in improved power generation. It also reduces mechanical losses. Thus, the Saphonian has been found to be about 2.3 times more significantly efficient than conventional turbines and windmills. It also means that due to the hydraulic system, the Saphonian is able to store energy, which enables it to supply a steady flow of power, provided there is wind flowing or there is energy stored in the system.

In ordinary systems, whatever is generated has to be consumed instantly. National power grids usually supply the exact amount required. This means that when demand exceeds supply, there will be some places without power. On the other hand, excess energy, not being stored, would go to waste.

The storage capability of the Saphonian is therefore significant. Further, the equipment is cheaper to produce than conventional systems. It costs 45 per cent less to develop and deploy a Saphonian Blade-less turbine. With customisations, that cost could be further reduced.

Saphon Energy has tested a 300–500 Watt system as a prototype. It has performed better than was anticipated. The company is now focused on developing a second generation prototype that in many instances, will improve on the hydro-mechanical performance of the first generation unit.

What will matter for this development and its growth is how many national electricity providers deploying wind infrastructure decide to use this more cost effective technology. The Saphonian has proved that Africa can actually improve on previously available technologies that were not as efficient as they could have been.

For William Kamkwamba, this would be a climax to his dream, that affordable energy solutions developed in Africa could actually compete with foreign platforms and even outperform them.

As Africa struggles to meet electricity needs for a growing population, it is necessary for the continent to develop its own home solutions suited for the environment and the pocket. Convenient and relevant innovations such as the Saphonian stand a good chance.

It is no wonder therefore that the Saphonian has won its parent company the KPMG innovation Grant for 2012.

Bulb 2.0 and Maker Faire Africa 2012

For the price of Kshs. 30 /= (EUR 0.27 or USD 0.35) you’ll manage to pick up this kerosine lamp from a kiosk in Kibera, Kenya:
Kibera lamp

Certainly a great visual update to the famous tin can paraffin lamp which sells for a slightly higher price and requires additional soldering. Kerosine (or paraffin) lamps are the alternative to modern solar LED lights, and also to the (otherwise great) daylight indoor illumination via filled water bottles (invented by Alfredo Mozer in Brazil in 2002).

Thx, Majala!

In other news: Maker Faire Africa is coming up again. Yay!

MFA-2012

Maker Faire Africa on November 5th and 6th 2012 in Lagos, Nigeria.  If you are a maker, please consider registering with their website. Further info will be available soon.

Oh, and if you’re on Facebook, please check out our recently relaunched page. All are welcome! 🙂