"In general, the people here seem very welcoming and kind, to each other, and to us. Swahili is a beautiful language to listen to, and we're hoping to speak a bit soon. At this altitude of about 6000 ft it's cool during the day and quite chilly at night (low of 48F to high of 70F). It'll get warmer as we go to Tanzania, farther from the equator, but at a lower elevation."
"...so the bus left with Lew and Josh. It's first stop was just near the hotel at a petrol station, and just after the bus departed there, Dave and Alex came running down the street at the side of the bus, having seen it on the road..."
"The locals really took initiative to find
creative solutions to problems, and we helped as teammates along the
way. That's exacftly what we had hoped for! "
Exciting! Read on!
Thank you to all of our supporters!
Bicycle based carriers created from scrap material in Tanzania
"Halting Africa's relative decline as a manufacturing force will not be easy. Skills, management, industrial organisation are all lacking; the boom in commodity prices has mainly benefited foreign investors and in countries such as South Africa pushed up the exchange rate, making industrial goods less competitive. Most countries are too vulnerable to make it on their own."
-The Guardian (May 26, 2006)
Senior Design Team 17's goal is to create a manual to instruct citizens of developing nations how to construct wood turning lathes from locally available materials. A woodturning lathe is a tool that consists of a rotating shaft holding a workpiece which will then be sculpted into a final product as shown in the third photo. Here is the wikipedia entry on woodturning.
We have consulted with some of the best and brightest who work on developmental aid engineering projects, such as Dr. Bernard Amadei (Center, above photo), Dr. Lew Lama (center, first photo), and Engineers Without Borders associates here at Drexel and in Philadelphia.
As part of our project, we are traveling to East Africa to work with the locals in recreating our lathes and using them to generate income. To do this, we are requesting support for this project from any interested companies or individuals. The Dean of the College of Engineering has generously offered to match any donations to this project, and to this end, we are aiming to raise $10,000.00 via external donations. Any form of support would greatly be appreciated and anyone who is interested in doing so should contact Lathes for Africa