And so... My time at SELCO is coming to a close...

Sad times!

Over the next few days I will be wrapping up a few loose ends from my time here. In the last week or so, quite a lot has happened here with the work I've been doing.

I heard the great news that the stove I ordered for an institution in Gulbarga has finally been delivered to the right place, and the clients have been using it. So far, initial trials seem to be going well, and over the next two months more testing will be carried out. It sounds like the guys there really like the stove, and are interested to get some more so they can carry out all their cooking on them, however its difficult to assess how much of the enthusiasm comes from SELCO having initially paid for the first stove on their behalf. Assuming the stove is used correctly, I think that they should make savings that will start to pay off quickly, while saving the women who cook for 100+ people, three times a day from inhaling large amounts of harmful smoke.

Also, our designs for a paddy separator tray have materialised as a neatly welded and nicely painted steel machine! We've assembled most of it, and managed to create an ugly but (hopefully) effective linkage for the motor (see below for a bit of over-zealous welding by a college technician, assisted by Seb.)

Seb "Sea-Bass" Burn assisting with some welding and managing to burn his hand through the terrible quality welding gloves... Well at least they had some, unlike most places! 

The paddy separator design almost constructed...

I've also finished a rather complicated Solidworks model of the paddy transplanter which I've mentioned in previous posts. Since it fell off a bus (yes, that actually happened, somehow) at the end of last transplanting season, its been a little worse for wear. I've made some modifications to improve the design, and so that new parts can be built at a workshop near here. 

Solidworks model of a paddy transplanter with a few modifications (and accidentally a bit shiny)

Meanwhile I've been able to give the machine a lick of paint, a bit of oil and grease and general TLC so that it can be ready to be taken to Puttur in a few weeks for an agricultural show and hopefully impress lots of farmers.

In other news, we've had a new face in the office (and our appartment) since Sameer arrived from the US to work with SELCO for the next year. Its been great fun so far, and I think he'll do a fab job here.

Finally here's a video I made while we were at a waterfall near Ujire... (put the quality up so it looks good :) )

More agri-machinery and a couple of treks

Since my last post, we have submitted the designs for our paddy separator to a metalworking workshop in Ujire. They've been quite helpful in taking on the project for us despite it not being the usual type of thing they are involved with. However progress has been very slow. Seb and I had estimated that our designs could be constructed in a couple of days using some basic tools such as an arc welder and angle grinder which we know they have available.  Its now been over a week since we last visited them and there's been little progress. A phone call this morning was not particularly fruitful "yes work it has been started" *rustling sound* "but other work has come in so not done yet." *another rustling sound* "I will call you when it is complete". I think this basically means that it will be finished when its finished and calling every day won't help. Maybe we'll pop in tomorrow...

On top of that, we're having trouble with the bearings and linkage we sourced from Mangalore. Its frustrating, but unfortunately typical of many people's experience trying to get things done here. I'm hoping we'll be into the testing phase for this machine by the time I leave for the UK, but its difficult to plan ahead when there are so many blockages in the chain of events which will lead us to that.

Meanwhile I have been able to do a little work on the paddy transplanter which has been tested quite a lot with local farmers during the rice transplanting season last year. Sam's blog gives a good overview of the project so far: click here. Basically it is a machine which has been designed to re-plant paddy plants which have initially been grown close together as young seedlings. Planting the small seedlings back into the field is a long process which is generally carried out by groups of women. During my time in the Philippines I actually helped out with the manual replanting process and met some people who have been doing it all their lives. It really is quite a painful, sweaty, muddy and repetitive process to carry out, and I can see the benefit of having a small manual machine to assist with the process. I've been looking at the design of the current machine which was quite badly damaged by falling off a bus after the last transplanting season in June. Some parts will need to be replaced so it makes sense to make some improvements at the same time.

Over the last two weeks we've been able to do a couple of hikes not far away from Ujire. A couple of weeks ago we hiked up a mountain called Kudremukh which is about 1900m above sea level, and on a clear day visible from our office window. We set off after sundown and  managed to camp near the summit (which was absolutely freezing without a tent or even sleeping bags) under a beautifully starry sky, and then headed up to the peak for sunrise the next morning.

The sun starting to rise over the western Ghats

Sunrise from the top of Kudremukh (the name means Horse's Face in Kannada)

We've also been able to climb an odd looking hill/rock formation called Gadaikall that you can see from where we stay in Ujire and which has an old fort called Jamalabad at the top. Its a very sweaty climb in the still, humid air, but the views from the top are great.

Seb, Surabhi, Sam, Nishant and Deepti on top of Gadaikall

Karnataka is on strike for the day...

....So why not start this post with a few pictures of monkeys I took the other day!?:

So yesterday was Ganesh Chaturthi - a festival day in honour of the god Ganesh, who looks like this:
We ventured into Ujire's town centre after work to check out the celebrations- there were fireworks, lots of orange bunting, decorated cows, flowers and dancers performing traditional dance (as well as more people than usual there to ask me "what-country!?" and look confused at the presence of a foreigner in this little town). Apparently later on in the week traditionally people build models of Ganesh and float them out on rivers or the sea.

Today is the second day of beautiful weather we've had in a row- yesterday was all blue sky and sunshine and today is much the same. We even did a little sunbathing in our lunch break [insert photo here]. Today is also the second day of not many people being around the college campus. People all across India are striking to oppose some bills that were passed in government last week. Auto drivers aren't driving, teachers aren't teaching and shopkeepers aren't shop-keeping. I'm told that Bangalore (a city of 8 million people) has pretty much ground to a halt The protest is against a bill which would allow foreign companies to own up to 51% of businesses here. This essentially means that companies such as Tesco and Walmart could open up supermarkets here and potentially kill off many small businesses. It however be a good thing for the Indian economy though, the idea being that it will boost the economy (which is currently not doing very well) and create jobs. On top of this, there is also the 14% diesel fuel price increase and changes to domestic cooking gas allowances which won't be making anyone happy.

Work continues at SELCO labs despite the strikes however, and we have been able to get some progress on the rice paddy separator Seb and I are designing. Here's a sneak preview (which probably won't demystify how on earth the thing works... but never mind- use your imagination)

We've found some suppliers for various components such as bearings, and have tracked down materials at some local workshops- the whole thing is designed so that it can be built here in the little town of Ujire. Engineering drawings have been produced- however I have a feeling it will be a little more of a challenge getting them created than just passing them over to a manufacturer. We'll see.

On our day off last week, Seb, Sam, Anantha and I were able to get out into the countryside to visit some waterfalls, see some more of rural life and go for a bit of a swim. Here are a few photographs of our adventures (which, unfortunately, don't feature elephants making noises very close by in the forest, or me sliding into a fast moving waterfall...)

Bull fight

Climbing around the falls

A spot of cliff-edge tree climbing

A nice cool wash!

Through the undergrowth

Under a big waterfall

Feeling settled in...

So project work is progressing, the monsoon rains are beginning to slow (ever so slightly) and I am feeling pretty settled in to life here.

Seb and I are still working on a rice paddy separator machine which  seems to be going quite smoothly.  If I've not mentioned it before- its part of SELCO's work on small scale agricultural machinery to help poorer farmers. We've got some feasible designs sketched up and are now trying to figure out how to bring it all together using the materials and expertise available round here. On Friday we took a little trip in to town to a metal workshop to check out the materials and components they have available. This sounds like quite a simple task- in the UK, and maybe in other parts of India, it would most likely be a case of finding someone at a desk and asking him for a catalogue. Not the case here. We walked around measuring up everything we could and then headed inside the workshop. All around you are people welding (without gloves or masks or any visible safety equipment) grinding metal and going about their work. Back home you'd never be allowed to this, but we pretty much had free reign of the place. We found a helpful guy who was able to show us some things we couldn't find and managed to pick up a sample of steel.  Its a great way to really get a feel for the materials that can be used, even if you constantly have to watch out where you're looking to avoid burning your retinas by accidentally looking at a welding arc.

My project "up north" in Gulbarga has progressed and the cooker I proposed for testing has arrived. Hopefully I will be able to take another trip up there some time in the next month to monitor how things are going for them. I'm hoping that the intervention will really make a difference there and help them save money on firewood fuel- Gulbarga is known by many in Karnataka to be a deprived area, and the institution there is providing for many children from very poor families.

The other day I was asked by Sam to do a presentation at the university's "tech club". SELCO labs have been asked to come along once a month to talk about the projects we're carrying out and facilitate discussion amongst the students. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but prepared a presentation about what I've been doing at SELCO- and giving some focus to my views on engineering for development. I actually kind of expected there to be about 5 or 6 students in a little room who had been forced to come along as some form of punishment... However, I walked into a huge room full of students and a few lecturers (about 60 or so) all apparently eager to hear from me. I found out later that about half of them were first year students who had arrived just the week before (no, there is definitely no such thing as freshers week here!).

So I delivered my talk, and was surprised how engaged the students seemed to be. I opened up for questions, and was really impressed with the student's intelligent, focussed responses. Sam lead a discussion based on my talk and we got the students to split into groups to discuss topics such as "What can our generation of engineers do to help the poor" and "Do we have responsibility to do so?" as well as some questions relating directly to the work of SELCO.

I was able to wander around and join in the subsequent discussions and was really impressed and excited by how these young students were keen on engaging with the problems in their society. I made the point that, for me as an outsider, it is perhaps much more difficult to understand the difficulties faced sectors of society who live in poverty. I feel like these students are in an incredible position to make a difference in their society and SELCO are doing a fantastic job at exposing them to ways they can create change in a country which has vast inequalities.

Its been an interesting week, rounded off with my birthday yesterday which was a good opportunity to spend some quality time with Seb, Nishant and Sam, with a few beverages and a personalised cake from the local baker (it appears they struggled to believe my name was a real one..)

Work update

So its been a while since I've updated this page... I'm pretty sure everyone who starts a blog starts off thinking they'll be updating it daily with exciting updates and photos... But its so easy to get on with living life rather than writing about it!

Work has been quite varied over the last few weeks. I've had some follow-up work from my trip up north to Gulbarga - mainly assessing their options for cooking and passing on information about their requirements for other solar installations such as a solar powered water pump for the well.

While I was there I spoke to them about the option of producing biogas as fuel for their cooking (this is made by using the breakdown of waste material - from food, agriculture, animal dung etc.). Biogas is being increasingly used all over India and it is relatively simple to set up when you have a source of waste to use. There is another name here for gas produced using manure- "Gobar gas". They had about 50 cows on site plus a few deer so it seems like a perfect option for them to set up a biogas plant and use this waste. Biogas plants output flammable gas as well as a slurry which is ideal as a fertiliser for agriculture. Despite this, they were very resistant to the idea- with a whole host of objections about how its smelly (which is surprisingly not true), the slurry doesn't work on the "black" soil in the area, and a general feeling that it "isn't something we do round here". SELCO have some project work looking into biogas plants which Vidyut is carrying out until he heads back to college, so he's looking the objections from the guys at the school.

I spent a while looking into the options for using cookers which use biomass pellets that burn cleanly, more efficiently and are kind to the environment - but this option still gave too much uncertainty about how much money they could save on fuel and makes them dependent on a single fuel supplier. I ended up making a comparison between these pellet stoves and some larger scale improved firewood stoves - particularly looking at those created by Sustaintech - a social enterprise which has come out of TIDE. Using this type of stove almost eliminates smoke and soot production as well as burning wood far more efficiently- I found that if they moved from a three-stone stove (open fire) set-up they could save as much as Rs.3000-5000 per month which is a huge amount for them.

I've been spending quite a bit of time working on a couple of different projects in the lab this week- some design and research work on a solar- hybrid food drier which is to be used at a fishing cooperative in Mangalore. This is Nishant's (he's going to be at SELCO for a year) main project and the  idea is that fish can be dried in order to preserve it and it doesn't go to waste, while saving money and energy on burning large amounts of fuel. Its quite a complicated problem- balancing air flow, getting optimum drying temperature and collecting enough solar energy to drive it is difficult.

The other project I've been working on is with Sebastian, designing a test rig for a small scale paddy separator which separates rice paddy from dehusked rice. Again- its a more complicated problem than it sounds- especially when you are constrained to designing with the materials, components and expertise that are locally available. The whole point in the design is that it can be easily replicated in poor farming areas and so our design must be cheap, sturdy and effective, otherwise its never going to be used.

Hopefully that wasn't too dull to read! I'll get some nice pictures up soon, but for now I'll leave you with a photo of the view out the lab window yesterday evening:

Sunday mud madness

So, completely unexpectedly on sunday afternoon we found out that some of the university's students and teachers were celebrating Krishna's birthday (Krishna Janmashtami) (no I didn't realise the gods had birthdays either) by smashing pots suspended very high up, and dunking each other in large amounts of mud.

Of course the fun and games was all reserved for the boys, with the ladies watching under umbrellas from a distance.

Here's a few pictures:

Somehow, Anantha (bottom left) manages to stay spotless and not be dragged into the meleé

A failed attempt

Carnage

Me, Seb and Vishal

After a wash with the hose

A bit of a dance off

Trip to Gulbarga

Just a short one to update on my trip up north. I headed out on Wednesday and arrived back here in Ujire on Saturday- so three days away in total. That sounds alright, except that roughly 45 hours of it was spent travelling! We arrived early on Thursday morning, after the 16 hour (which ended up being 18 hours) ride on a "sleeper" bus". I imagine that you probably would get a decent night's sleep on one of these when travelling on one of the UK's straight and smooth motorways... Not quite the same on Indian "roads" which apparently require the driver to brake and manoeuvre so ridiculously hard and fast    it would probably make a can of coke explode after 10 minutes.

There's also the issue of beeping. Actually for bus/truck drivers "beeping" is probably too soft a word so I'll go with the (probably american) "honking" to describe the ear-splitting sound made by just about every vehicle on the road. In the UK, I probably would use the horn about once a fortnight, for situations involving mild roadrage, being cut up or going around a blind corner. In India, horns are used with the same frequency as we'd use indicators in the UK. All together, not the easiest place to sleep, especially when you're about an inch too long for the beds...

Anyway, enough complaining. In Gulbarga, Deepti, Robin and I were able to visit a farm where the local SELCO branch had set up a solar powered electric fence. This relatively simple device helps this small scale farmer, who's field is very remote and miles from grid electricity, to keep his crops safe.

Deepti talking to a smiley farmer

A troupe of locals carrying produce on their heads

Robin and I later headed off to the school where we needed to gather information about their energy needs and cooking set-up. It was a sweaty, noisy (yes, teenagers blasting out tunes on their mobiles from the back seats is not unique to the UK) almost two-hour bus trip, which was not a lot of fun after all the travelling the previous night. When we arrived we were given Indian coffees and I was surprised how peaceful the place seemed (despite the 60 or so children who were being taught that day). We managed to gather lots of information and discussed the idea of trying out some solar cooking and clean burning pellet stoves, instead of smoky, inefficient wood burning on stones.

The leaders (right) were constantly smiling - until you take a photo of them

It was an interesting visit, and good to see that they were keen to try new things after having invested in some solar lighting. The institution was situated in a really run-down and remote village- but it was good to see that kids were being fed and educated here. The leaders of the place were quite excited and said that it was the first time a foreigner had visited their village. They gave us a lift to the main road to catch the bus in a tiny little Suzuki, and I answered lots of questions about British culture, religion, marriage and weather...

We spent the evening with the guys from the SELCO branch - eating some notoriously spicy local food     and drinking tea.  On the way back the next day, I have a feeling the bus driver decided to take an even bumpier, windier road than the route we arrived on. It was a worthwhile trip, even if I did come back incredibly tired and with a man-cold.