Haruna Mohammed

African Ingenuity December 22, 2009

The knife-sharpening bicycle
Peter who has modified his bicycle with a belt, a set of tensional pulleys and a grinding stone to make it a knife-sharpening machine. By kicking the bike up onto its stand and engaging a gearing system, he is able to use “leg-horsepower” to drive a grinding wheel and sharpen knives while “on the move”.

Peter has been at this for 2 years now and he makes about Kshs 500 ( app. 10 US$) a day by riding his mobile workshop from client to client sharpening all their knives as he goes. The grinding stone he uses has lasted an astounding 2 years and he has had to replace his drive belt a couple of times but that is as simple as cutting up a long strip of rubber from an old car or bicycle tire inner tube.

Maker Faire Africa 2009 – NSBE Accra Poly Chapter- Best Inventors in Africa!

The National Society of Black Engineers – NSBE –Accra Polytechnic Chapter was awarded the best inventors in Africa at the just ended three day Maker Faire Africa (MFA)’ conference.

Maker Faire Africa (MFA), a celebration of African ingenuity, innovation and invention, took place on August 14-16 at the AITI Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT in Ghana’s capital, Accra.

NSBE –Accra Poly Chapter built an FM Station. The FM STATION which was built by three NSBE members was made up of Mixer, Stereo encoder, an Antenna (FM Broadcasting), Voltage Standing wave Ratio (VSWR) Meter, 150W Fm Exciter (Transmitter) and 50omhs coaxial cable. Other items presented include solar power inverter Electronic Locker and power inverter. The Fm station can cover about 30-35Km.

After the executives of the fair inspection, NSBE –Accra Poly Chapter was selected as the best inventors in Africa. They were awarded with some Electronic components, maker fair T-Shirt, solar bag and books and free air ticket to Kenya next year 2010 Maker Fair. Various tools were presented to the school (Accra Polytechnic) to assist the incoming inventors.

The first edition of Maker Faire Africa was successful by any standards. The 3-day event drew exhibitors from countries including: Brazil, Guatemala, Tibet, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Malawi, South Africa, Liberia, Pakistan, Uganda, Madagascar, India and Cote d’Ivoire.

The Kinshasa stove
After all these fascinating AfriGadgets from Maker Faire Africa, here’s another invention as seen by our friend Cedric Kalonji, a Congolese journalist in Kinshasa (D.R.C.):

For the lack of a cheap power supply in the City of Kinshasa, smart mechanics came up with this little stove that speeds up combustion by adding a little electric fan (hidden inside this tube that looks like being part of a flat spring). The fan itself is powered by (Chinese!) batteries and with the burning of charcoal, this quick stove obviously isn’t the greenest solution. But it works and does the job for those who will otherwise have no alternative.

Cedric also mentions on his blog post that it’s difficult to identify the inventor of this device. A perfect example of how low-cost technology easily gets adopted and/or modified (and why intellectual property rights are still a major issue in many places).

Soap Cutter

Though he has many more inventions in his workshop in Northern Ghana, the last of the three items that he brought to Accra was a soap cutter. It’s a device that has a hinge on one end that opens and closes with piano wires and guitar screws to hold wire tight across the device. As it is closed, it slices the soap cleanly.

Building Dominic Wanjihu’s Food Dryer

Dominic Wanjihia is from Kenya, and he’s here at Maker Faire Africa in Ghana because of the innovative designs and solutions that he comes up with for problems that ordinary Africans face. We had profiled one of his earlier inventions, an evapocooler for camel milk in Somalia, last year.

He’s been in Accra this last week working in the timber yards in Makola building a food dryer and a food cooler to show at the event. Both of them use air, and the dryer takes advantage of the heat from the sun. More detailed posts will be coming on them, but here’s a few shots of him and the carpenters building the devices.