Appropriate Technology

Welcome to the Nottingham Hackspace Appropriate Technology group. We try to meet once per month to discuss and work on projects relating to appropriate technology and international development. Please come along and get involved.

Next meeting: Thursday 20th October 2011 - Build a solar lantern workshop

What is appropriate technology?

The term 'intermediate technology' was coined by the economist E.F. Schumacher who wrote the book “Small is beautiful - Economics as if people mattered”. He actually wrote that there is an 'appropriate size for everything'

• “encompassing technological choice and application that is small scale, labour intensive, energy efficient, environmentally sound and locally controlled”
• People centred ideas

Why do we do it?

Some numbers that help to put things into perspective:

• 1 in 4 people in the world without access to electricity
• 1 in 6 people in the world never touched a phone
• 1 in 3 people in the world has access to a computer
• 75% energy used in 'developed' countries
• 1 in 5 people in the world does not have access to safe drinking water
• 1 in 3 people in the world does not have access to adequate sanitation

Main Projects

These are projects we as a group are actively working on.

Solar Lanterns

MIT global challenge 2011 with some solar lanterns

Build your own solar panel

Here are details for people to build their own solar electric panel This is the best design I have seen and has been pioneered and improved by Norman Phipps who runs a course to build them at LILI (Low Impact Living Initiative). He has been building them in groups in Africa. It would be good to get him along to do an afternoon on this.

Micro hydro electronic load controller

A bit of an overview is here

Project Ideas

This where we are listing ideas for things to design and build in the future, but we are probably not actively working on.

Water pumping systems

It would be great to build some of these simple water pumps but there are already some very good designs for these so we are unsure of how we could improve those designs.

• Rope and washer pump

A rope washer pump is a very simple and inexpensive way of lift water. Some details on rope washer pumps are here. A nice model rope pump is here

• Coil pump

Pedal power equipment

Maya pedal machines

Contacts

These are some groups we either have contact with or would like to make contact with. We would really like to link up with hack spaces, fab labs, development NGOs and inventors from around the world. Please get in touch if you have an idea or a useful contact.

• Practical Action Geek Club
• Engineers Without Borders UK

Useful and Interesting links

• Practical Action
• 'Small is...' Festival 2011 2-4th September Rugby
• Build your own solar panel
• Build a machine that can make anything from scrap for developing countries
• Lighting from water bottles in the Philippines

Past meetings

Monday September 19th 2011 - Inaugural meeting. The main ideas and principles were discussed. Thursday October 20th 2011