WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: Repurposing Tech for Developing Countries 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:07.240 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios, 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:13.760 How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:16.720 I'm your host job in Strickland. I'm an executive producer 0:00:16.800 --> 0:00:18.759 with How Stuff Works and I heart Radio and I 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:22.479 love all things tech. And In this classic episode of 0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:26.720 tech Stuff, which originally published on August twenty second, two twelve, 0:00:27.200 --> 0:00:31.880 Chris Palette and I talk about repurposing technology for developing countries, 0:00:32.320 --> 0:00:36.400 taking technology that might be considered outdated here in the 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:38.839 United States and in other parts of the world, and 0:00:38.880 --> 0:00:42.080 then making sure that that technology, with the proper support, 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:45.360 goes to places where it can do an enormous amount 0:00:45.479 --> 0:00:49.600 of good. I find this particular topic pretty inspirational when 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:53.280 it is done properly. Obviously, you can do this in 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:56.640 a way that can cause no good at all, or 0:00:56.760 --> 0:01:00.680 maybe even cause harm if done irresponsibly. But we'll get 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:03.080 into all of that. So let's sit back, relax and 0:01:03.200 --> 0:01:07.080 enjoy this classic episode. We're gonna talk about something that's 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:11.880 really kind of a a humanitarian sort of approach to hacking. 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:14.400 But before we really get into it, I wanted to 0:01:14.520 --> 0:01:20.959 read something. It's a little listener mail. This is actual 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:23.240 listener mail. I have it in front of me. It's 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:26.839 on real paper and everything. What kind of strange technology 0:01:26.880 --> 0:01:30.520 is that I know? Not? It confuses and frightens me. 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:33.640 It's like it's appearing on a screen, but it's on 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:38.399 an actual physical sheet of paper. Who's it is? But 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:41.760 only because there's a lamp behind the letter that I'm reading. 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:44.839 This is a letter that we received from our super fan, 0:01:45.000 --> 0:01:49.200 Adam Pervez, who actually has sent stuff to lots of 0:01:49.240 --> 0:01:51.400 our podcast He's a big fan of How Stuff Works 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:53.440 podcasts in general. And if you guys have been to 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:56.040 our Facebook page, you may have seen a picture Chris 0:01:56.080 --> 0:02:00.440 and I were sporting a pair of alpaca wool hats, 0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:03.120 and these are hats that he picked up while he 0:02:03.240 --> 0:02:08.480 was doing something he calls the happiness plunge. Packers are keen. Yeah, 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:10.880 so the happiness plunges. This idea he had where he 0:02:10.919 --> 0:02:14.079 decided he wanted to really follow his dreams and try 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:16.400 to make the world a better place than it was 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:19.120 when he got there. And so the idea is that 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:22.800 he quit his job and he started traveling through the 0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:25.720 world really but mostly through Latin America when he started, 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:30.079 and trying to help different communities as he traveled from 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:32.080 place to place, he would listen to the house Stuff 0:02:32.080 --> 0:02:36.440 Works podcasts in between those places. Well, I wanted to 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:39.240 read a paragraph from this letter. It's actually a fairly 0:02:39.240 --> 0:02:40.720 long letter, so I'm not gonna read the whole thing, 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:43.480 but here's the paragraph. My goal is a travelers to 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:45.519 leave each place better than how I found it, which 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:48.440 I do by volunteering everywhere I go. I've had volunteering 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:50.919 experiences such as feeding the elderly at a nursing home 0:02:50.960 --> 0:02:54.760 in Mexico, installing solar panels in rural Honduras, attracting book 0:02:54.800 --> 0:02:57.480 donations for a rural library project in Peru, playing with 0:02:57.560 --> 0:03:00.640 kids at orphanages in Costa Rica and Ecuador, designing a 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:03.800 financing strategy for a new NGO and El Salvador, and 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:08.320 marketing an organization that turns donated used bikes into bike machines, 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:12.440 washing machines, blenders, water well pumps, etcetera in Guatemala. There's 0:03:12.440 --> 0:03:15.480 a lot I can offer as an engineer slash NBA 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:18.120 and there's more to the letter than that, but that's 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:20.440 kind of what gave us the idea for this podcast. 0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:23.480 We wanted to talk about technology that people have taken 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:28.680 and repurposed to benefit people who are in developing nations 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:31.400 who don't have access to the same level of technology 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:33.440 we do. And in fact, if we were to give 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:38.200 those people the technology that we take for granted every day, 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:41.480 it would not necessarily be helpful because their conditions, their 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:44.320 day to day conditions are so vastly different from the 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:47.560 ones we are used to that they would not necessarily 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:49.839 be able to take advantage of that tech. So they're 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:53.000 actually taking kind of a lower tech approach by repurposing 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:56.400 stuff that was never meant to do the things that 0:03:56.640 --> 0:03:59.840 it now does. And we thought, what a cool idea, 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:01.960 So we want to kind of get into that and 0:04:02.000 --> 0:04:05.400 sort of talk about the different ways people have tried 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:09.440 to to uh accomplish this and uh, I'm sorry you're 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:11.320 gonna say something, well, I was gonna say that. Uh 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:14.440 and in some of these places, uh, you know, these 0:04:14.480 --> 0:04:17.160 are the places where, for example, cell phones have really 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:20.840 vaulted over land lines because a lot of a lot 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:26.920 of areas have not ever been wired for landline telephone used. So, um, 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:29.719 you know now that uh cell phone talk technology is 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:33.880 so inexpensive, I mean just the basic phone technology. Um, 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:37.320 and you know, many people in places such as uh, 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:41.839 you know Africa for example. UM, more of the rural areas. UM. 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:45.120 You know, really it's a an urban versus rural thing anyway. 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:47.520 But but um, yeah, a lot of more the rural 0:04:47.560 --> 0:04:50.680 places where or places that are more removed where there's 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:53.559 a lot of distance in between that area and an 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:57.160 urban area. UM. Uh cell phone usage. You know, it's 0:04:57.160 --> 0:04:58.919 easier to put up the towers than it is to 0:04:59.200 --> 0:05:03.400 wire those places for landlines. So um you know that 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:08.120 In doing research for other podcasts where we've talked about phones. UM, 0:05:08.160 --> 0:05:10.240 I've just run across stories what they've said, Well, you know, 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:14.200 cell phone usage per capita maybe higher in some of 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:16.640 these other places, simply because everybody's got a cell phone. 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:19.120 They never had a landline phone. Right, it's now that 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:21.920 they dropped one for the other. It's that they completely 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:24.840 leap frogged. Yeah, and and and and the play and 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:27.000 some of these inventions that we're going to talk about 0:05:27.560 --> 0:05:31.000 um or these technologies. Uh, they may not necessarily have 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:37.480 uh for example, electricity seven, but they might be able 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:40.880 to repurpose some of these other things uh inexpensively to 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:43.880 improve their lives through this other technology. And it is 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:46.560 a lot of it is very inventive. I actually saw 0:05:46.839 --> 0:05:49.680 Apollo thirteen invoked in one of the articles that I 0:05:49.760 --> 0:05:54.279 was searching for because, um, if you know the story 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:59.160 that was the mission where um, they the astronauts had serious, 0:05:59.200 --> 0:06:03.880 serious problem because they're some of the technology failed, um 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:06.200 and they had to come up with other stuff on 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:09.279 the fly. I know that was actually the uh, the 0:06:09.320 --> 0:06:12.640 genesis of the idea for the TV show Scrap Peep Challenge, 0:06:12.720 --> 0:06:15.520 which in the United States was Junkyard Wars, where you 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:17.920 had to just throw some other stuff together and had 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:19.960 sort of this the same idea you would you would 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:22.440 you would go through a junkyard and you would salvage 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:26.800 different machines in order to build something that was specifically 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:31.640 intended to achieve a a particular goal which was established 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:33.000 at the beginning of the show. So you would have 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:37.560 a goal like it might be traversed this this landscape here, 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:40.160 and you're going to have to be able to go up, 0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:43.480 you know, a twenty degree incline, and there's going to 0:06:43.520 --> 0:06:45.200 be a section that's gonna be rocky, and there might 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:48.000 even be a section where you have to travel across water. 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:50.440 So you have to build a machine that's capable capable 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:52.479 of doing all those things, but all you have is 0:06:52.520 --> 0:06:54.880 whatever is in this junkyard. Yeah, and of course they 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:57.640 did up mids TV, so they'd end up seeding the 0:06:57.680 --> 0:07:00.800 junkyard a handful of necessary parts. But is if nobody ever, 0:07:01.120 --> 0:07:02.920 you know, they don't know everything that's in the junkyard, 0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:05.320 I'm sure they go, well, it turns out that there 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:07.560 isn't any of this stuff and we're kind of stuck. 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:10.520 So it would make it would not make for interesting television, 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:12.960 so they would they would put in things in there. 0:07:13.120 --> 0:07:15.720 But here's the thing is that people are really inventive, right, 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:18.760 and they can come up with solutions that you do 0:07:18.800 --> 0:07:21.520 not anticipate. So even if you were to seed a 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:24.680 junkyard with things that you think, oh, well, clearly, they'll 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:27.440 want to build a device that can do this by 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:30.080 using this, this, and this, it may turn out that 0:07:30.120 --> 0:07:32.040 they end up getting stuff that you did not see 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:35.000 that junkyard with and they build something that works, you know, 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:38.600 as well or perhaps even better than what you had 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:42.440 conceived of when you were seating it. Because people adapt 0:07:42.520 --> 0:07:45.280 to the situation they are in, and they are very 0:07:45.360 --> 0:07:48.120 quick to adapt their technology as well. And in fact, 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:51.520 we have seen that in developing nations, and a lot 0:07:51.520 --> 0:07:53.880 of the projects we're gonna be talking about kind of 0:07:54.800 --> 0:07:57.760 they didn't start this process. They just saw something that 0:07:57.840 --> 0:08:00.800 was happening and decided to help it along. Uh. And 0:08:00.840 --> 0:08:02.480 there are a couple of organizations I want to mention 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:06.360 before we even get into specifics. One of those is 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:10.440 called Random Hacks of Kindness and another is called Geeks 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:14.720 Without Bounds, And both of these organizations are dedicated to 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:19.360 helping developing nations through various hack projects. Although and both 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:23.280 of those cases, they are more focused on the software 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:25.560 side of things. So, like you were saying, you know, 0:08:25.600 --> 0:08:29.040 cell phone use being much more prevalent than landline use. 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:33.240 A lot of these involve apps for phones that would 0:08:33.360 --> 0:08:38.680 alert people to things that affect them in their daily lives. Um, 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:41.120 and things that other people just wouldn't think of because 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:44.240 it's not something that affects us, right, So a lot 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:47.959 of these are programs that would not that that are 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:51.040 again on that software side, that are not about hardware hacks. 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:54.880 We're really focusing mostly on hardware hacks today, although some 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:58.080 other stuff might pop up to yeah, this is um. 0:08:58.480 --> 0:09:01.160 Also keep in mind that a lot of the technology 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:03.160 that that can be used for ther you know, it's 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:07.480 perfectly good technology. Um, you know, we're not talking necessarily 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:09.920 about junk. Although it might be things that other people 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:13.679 have cast off as being obsolete. In some cases it's 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:17.280 you know, completely functional and uh you know, there's there's 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:21.120 no reason to overdo it. Yeah, there's some cases where 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:24.400 it's not even repurposing in the sense of making something 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:28.080 do something it wasn't meant to do, like repurposing, just 0:09:28.120 --> 0:09:30.520 as in reusing. So there are a lot of these 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:33.280 programs that allow you to do things like donate your 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:38.120 old electronics to various programs, so like old computers are. 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:40.720 That's the perfect example. It might be a computer that 0:09:40.760 --> 0:09:42.880 you think is obsolete because it can't run the latest 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:47.160 stuff that you like to run, but for a developing nation, 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:50.640 it might be a very useful asset. But we're really 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:55.360 looking at in this podcast technology that's been turned into 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:57.640 doing something else. And I was going to start with 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:02.719 Maya Pedal and Maya All I'm I'm assuming that's the 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:06.319 organization that Adam was talking about in his letter, because 0:10:06.360 --> 0:10:12.560 Maya Pedal is the is a Guatemalan organization that takes 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:16.640 donated bikes, mainly donated from the United States and from Canada, 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:19.960 and they take those bikes to either recondition them and 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:22.920 sell them or they use the parts to build what 0:10:22.960 --> 0:10:25.840 they call and I'm going to completely butcher the pronunciation 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:31.560 of this biking mackinas or bike powered machines pedal powered machines. 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:34.240 And so what they're doing is they're actually taking these 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:38.640 bikes apart to some extent, and using that pedal power. 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:41.719 So instead of it turning a wheel, it's turning some 0:10:41.800 --> 0:10:46.280 other mechanical part to accomplish a task that they might 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:52.240 otherwise not have a mechanical opportunity to to address it, 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:54.840 like things like and then simple stuff you know, Adam 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:58.040 and mentioned things like a washing machine. Well that's a 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:01.520 that's a perfect example. You've got a big tub that 0:11:01.679 --> 0:11:03.840 you put the water in, the soap in, the clothing in, 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:07.680 and you have an agitator in there, something that turns 0:11:07.720 --> 0:11:10.920 around and moves the clothing so that it creates this 0:11:11.040 --> 0:11:14.640 agitation which will help the soap and water work out 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:18.120 all the soil and everything else that's in the clothing. 0:11:18.800 --> 0:11:21.959 You have that agitator hooked up through a series of 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:26.960 of gears and chains or belts to a pedal system 0:11:27.000 --> 0:11:29.480 on a bike, and it might even have the back 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:32.160 half of the bike more or less intact, where you've 0:11:32.200 --> 0:11:34.600 got the seat and everything, and you sit down the seat, 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:37.520 you pedal the petals, it turns the agitator and it 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:41.280 ends up washing clothing that way. There's actually a guy 0:11:41.440 --> 0:11:44.880 in Texas who had um a blog. The last entry 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:47.400 I saw was in two but there was a guy 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:51.360 in Texas named John Wells who was building. He built 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:54.120 something very similar to that called the He called it 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:58.440 the bike O Worsher Worsher spelled w O R s 0:11:58.640 --> 0:12:01.839 h e R and through Texas Fashion UH. It was 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:05.280 part of the Southwest Texas Alternative Energy and Sustainable Living 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:08.880 Field Laboratory. So the idea was that he was building 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:13.440 stuff that would allow you to have a sustainable life 0:12:13.440 --> 0:12:16.280 where you're not depending so much on things like electricity. 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:19.439 And it was a really cool project. But it's very 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:21.800 similar to the stuff you see in these developing nations now. 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:25.079 In the case of Texas, obviously it's not due to 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:28.160 lack of electricity. It's more of kind of a an 0:12:28.360 --> 0:12:33.920 UH environmentally friendly lifestyle that he wants to adopt, right 0:12:33.960 --> 0:12:37.880 But in the case of Guatemala, it may be necessity 0:12:38.000 --> 0:12:42.400 because not all places in rural rural areas of these 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:47.600 these countries have access to regular electricity. Yeah, yeah, that's true. 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:50.120 And one of the things that struck me and doing 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:54.320 research for this podcast is the similarity of some of 0:12:54.360 --> 0:12:57.200 these inventions to things that you might see in the 0:12:57.200 --> 0:13:01.400 pages of Make magazine or among the er community, um 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:04.000 you know, talking about different bike machines. For example, I 0:13:04.040 --> 0:13:08.080 remember watching a video probably more than a year ago 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:11.920 now where uh, some some folks in San Francisco basically 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:14.480 collect old bikes and what they do is they cut 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:17.000 them apart and make new bikes out of them. I 0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:20.880 mean they're they're strange contraptions, things with different size wheels 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:23.440 and all sorts of others. Mostly too. It's like an 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:26.680 art bike's community, and it's mostly because they can and 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:29.000 and want to have fun doing that. But you can, 0:13:29.080 --> 0:13:31.080 you can do the same kinds of things to to 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:36.960 uh uh, to create sustainable UM machinery. Yeah. I saw 0:13:36.960 --> 0:13:41.160 a great video from the Maya Pedal Group where they 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:45.679 showed a de grainer and it was what it was 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:47.640 was it was this it looked like the back half 0:13:47.679 --> 0:13:51.280 of a bicycle. But then there was this shoot that 0:13:51.400 --> 0:13:56.120 you could feed uh corn through corn that's actually still 0:13:56.160 --> 0:13:59.040 on the cob, uncooked corn, and you would feed it 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:01.760 through and had a series of gears that would end 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:05.440 up pulling the kernels off the cob so that you 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:09.800 could de grain that corn very very efficiently. You just 0:14:09.960 --> 0:14:12.280 turn the you know, you're peddling, that's what's turning the 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:16.280 gears and uh. It was so much faster than doing 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:18.200 it by hand, and it actually saves a lot of 0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:21.600 time and effort. So that was another example. But they 0:14:21.640 --> 0:14:23.480 had lots of other ones that I saw. One that 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:27.720 was a a pedal powered blender, and they were showing 0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:31.120 how they were using aloe plants. They would take the 0:14:31.160 --> 0:14:33.200 skin off the allow plant and chop it up, put 0:14:33.200 --> 0:14:35.880 it in with some water and a blender, uh, and 0:14:35.920 --> 0:14:39.360 then uh start peddling. And they would use this to 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:43.120 create things like shampoos that they could then sell, and 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:45.360 it was a way of generating money because these are 0:14:45.960 --> 0:14:50.880 in general, the communities that these these projects are benefiting 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:58.240 are incredibly poor compared to the lives that most of 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:01.560 the people in the west, uh, like the developed nations 0:15:01.640 --> 0:15:05.160 are used to. So for example, for for me and Chris, 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:09.600 you know, the thought of Uh, the reason why these 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:13.040 devices are so important is because they they take away 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:16.840 the reliance upon things like kerosene, which might cost four 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:20.280 dollars a week, and that is prohibitively expensive. I mean 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:22.760 that is that's a totally different world than the world 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:25.920 we live in. Yeah. Basically, if you're listening to this podcast, 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:30.600 you know this, this is kind of a different different experience. Yeah. 0:15:30.800 --> 0:15:32.960 So yeah, the and and there was a lot of 0:15:33.040 --> 0:15:35.960 other examples of the same sort of thing, mostly, you know, 0:15:36.080 --> 0:15:39.560 all these really cool versions of bikes, uh, to do 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:43.440 things like make tiles. There was a bicycle bicycle powered 0:15:43.560 --> 0:15:50.520 thresher for for harvesting crops. There there were water pumps. 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:53.480 I saw one where a guy was riding a bike 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:56.120 and water was coming out of a of a pipe 0:15:56.240 --> 0:16:00.280 and it was it was like a bicycle powered well yeah, um. 0:16:00.320 --> 0:16:03.680 I actually ran across an invention from the Nippon Basic 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:08.120 company in Japan called the cyclo Clean and basically it's 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:12.240 it's designed to you add it to the bike. It's 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:14.360 kind of hard to describe, you might want to look 0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:18.640 it up, but it's it's got water containers so somebody 0:16:18.640 --> 0:16:21.200 would ride there by and it goes on your bike. Uh, 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:23.680 an existing bike, so it's not unmodified if you will, 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:25.120 you don't want to cut a bike apart or anything 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:28.160 like that as a moving bike. And uh so you 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:31.680 ride to a place a source of water. Now, if 0:16:31.720 --> 0:16:36.000 you think about lakes or streams, creeks, uh, you know, 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:39.400 most of us listening to this podcast probably know all 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:42.240 sorts of micro organisms live in that water. A lot 0:16:42.280 --> 0:16:43.760 of it isn't safe to drink, and a lot of 0:16:43.760 --> 0:16:46.960 people around the world don't have access to clean water. Um. 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:49.400 So what this does is you pour the water into 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:54.400 the containers and as you uh you know, using the 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:57.960 kinetic energy of pedaling the bike, the Cyclo clean will 0:16:58.400 --> 0:17:03.560 filter the water. So it actually creates potable water by 0:17:03.800 --> 0:17:07.560 the energy of the bike, and it's it's portable and potable. 0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:14.800 So it's that that's a pretty nifty um, I guess, 0:17:14.800 --> 0:17:19.560 just potent pot but um, actually, I just want to 0:17:19.560 --> 0:17:21.800 point out before we move on real quick. UM, A 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:25.240 lot of the devices that I found, uh in researching 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:27.879 this episode are not things we can talk about because 0:17:27.920 --> 0:17:33.280 they're they're invented, they're intended to be inexpensive, and they're new, 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:36.880 so it's not really repurposing technology. There are so many 0:17:36.960 --> 0:17:39.840 really cool devices, it might it might also be worth 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:42.760 investigating it again in the future. Some of the really 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:45.119 cool devices that are you know, they'll be like a 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:48.920 twenty dollar or something and it completely does a very 0:17:49.000 --> 0:17:51.960 useful function and speeds life. And I'm like, oh, man, 0:17:52.000 --> 0:17:54.000 if I could just use like we you know, Dean 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:57.160 came in the whole thing about you know, his his 0:17:57.240 --> 0:17:59.800 water projects, which I think we talked about in the 0:18:00.200 --> 0:18:05.399 Cayman podcast, but that was years ago anyway, So I 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:08.360 wanted to also mention, Yeah, Maya Pedal if you if 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:10.560 you live in the United States or Canada and you're 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:14.240 interested in donating an old bicycle to this. Maya Pedal 0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:16.080 does have its own website and you can learn more 0:18:16.119 --> 0:18:19.280 about the program and how you can participate. They also 0:18:19.400 --> 0:18:24.040 invite people to come down and visit their facilities in Guatemala. Obviously, 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:27.640 you can even work there for a while, volunteer there 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:30.440 for a while, and help do things like make repairs 0:18:30.920 --> 0:18:35.520 or design new machines. Um. It's very much a hacker 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:38.760 culture in the sense of they have they have specific 0:18:38.800 --> 0:18:42.119 tasks they need to achieve, they have a specific set 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:46.520 of resources, they they they are at their disposal and 0:18:46.560 --> 0:18:48.680 they have to find the way to make the resources 0:18:48.720 --> 0:18:52.840 meet their their needs. So they're not interested in making 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:54.920 it look pretty. They're not interested in any of that. 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:59.120 Their aesthetics are not important. Yeah, it's all about achieving 0:18:59.160 --> 0:19:01.399 the goal. And and that's something that appeals to a 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:04.960 lot of hackers who are all about, hey, yeah, I 0:19:05.040 --> 0:19:07.280 know that this was meant to do this one thing, 0:19:07.840 --> 0:19:09.760 but you know, if we just changed it a little bit, 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:12.120 we could totally do this other thing. Let's see if 0:19:12.119 --> 0:19:15.639 we can make it happen. And uh, you read a 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:19.720 lot about that kind of stuff in these in these stories. Um, 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:22.760 there was another one that I wanted to mention, very 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:26.680 similar kind of idea again using bicycles. A fellow named 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:32.720 how Watts invented something designed to help countries that are 0:19:32.840 --> 0:19:37.320 all about dealing with e waste. So, you know, old electronics, 0:19:37.800 --> 0:19:40.320 if you're right, yeah, if you've ever if you've ever 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:43.120 tried to get rid of your electronics, maybe maybe you've 0:19:43.119 --> 0:19:45.400 tried to put them in some sort of e waste 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:49.680 recycle program. One of the problems of of some of 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:52.480 those programs, not all of them, they're not all created equal, 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:56.400 but some of those programs, yes, some of these programs 0:19:57.119 --> 0:20:01.640 ship that stuff off to various developing nations where they 0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:06.160 have an industry all around recycling that material. And it's 0:20:06.200 --> 0:20:12.879 mostly about recapturing the metals that are used in those products, 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:15.960 mainly copper, yeah, and lead to that's another one of 0:20:16.000 --> 0:20:18.600 the big ones, recapturing the copper and lead that's used 0:20:18.600 --> 0:20:22.920 in these electronics. It can be a very dangerous thing 0:20:22.960 --> 0:20:25.920 to do if you aren't being if you're if you're 0:20:25.920 --> 0:20:29.480 not following particular steps right and and it can release 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:32.280 a lot of toxic elements into the environment and also 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:35.280 affect people's health. Yeah. The thing is too that in 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:38.119 in some of these cases, the people who are disassembling 0:20:38.160 --> 0:20:40.600 the electronics aren't given the proper tools to do that, 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:43.920 and some I've read about people who had to put 0:20:44.720 --> 0:20:49.080 materials into a fire essentially intending to melt it all down, 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:52.359 and of course in doing so, it releases toxic chemical 0:20:52.400 --> 0:20:57.679 toxic chemicals, uh, into this the soil um people in 0:20:57.800 --> 0:21:00.480 the atmosphere. The people in the immediate area have health 0:21:00.520 --> 0:21:04.720 problems as a result of the metals leaching into their soil. 0:21:05.080 --> 0:21:09.400 It can it can affect areas even further out from 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:12.720 the immediate area. It's it's one of those. In a way, 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:17.119 it really shows that environmental concerns and ecology go beyond 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:21.240 just the point. Like there's a there's like a ring effect, 0:21:21.359 --> 0:21:25.000 right you you move one ring further out from the center, 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:27.240 and you can still see where the effects are and 0:21:27.240 --> 0:21:29.320 they might not be a severe and they may not 0:21:29.440 --> 0:21:32.239 be the same effects as you would see right at 0:21:32.280 --> 0:21:35.239 the point of contact, but it's still negative. Well, in 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:38.119 this case, very it's exactly what you're talking about. You know, 0:21:38.119 --> 0:21:40.840 a lot of these UH countries, what they do is 0:21:40.880 --> 0:21:43.840 that they will use fire to melt stuff down. Like 0:21:44.600 --> 0:21:48.240 like let's say copper wire that's insulated, So you've got 0:21:48.240 --> 0:21:51.000 a rubber insulation around copper wire. Well, they want to 0:21:51.000 --> 0:21:53.320 get to the copper. They want to get the rubber 0:21:53.320 --> 0:21:56.160 off of there. And what's an efficient way of doing that. Well, 0:21:56.200 --> 0:21:58.439 you could burn the rubber off, but that can release 0:21:58.440 --> 0:22:00.359 a lot of toxic chemicals into the atmost sphere and 0:22:00.400 --> 0:22:03.720 get it into the ground as well. UH. And then 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:06.439 you also have essentially you have burnt copper, which is 0:22:06.480 --> 0:22:09.640 not as valuable as copper that has not been put 0:22:09.680 --> 0:22:12.119 through this process. Chris and I will be back to 0:22:12.160 --> 0:22:15.879 talk a little bit more about this repurposing technology for 0:22:15.920 --> 0:22:19.160 developing countries idea of First, let's take a quick break. 0:22:27.240 --> 0:22:31.760 So what Watts did was he built a machine that 0:22:31.960 --> 0:22:35.720 was again a bicycle powered machine where he called it 0:22:35.760 --> 0:22:39.480 the E Source and it has a grinder in it 0:22:39.960 --> 0:22:44.560 and it has also a metal separator. Uh it's it's 0:22:44.720 --> 0:22:47.399 it's like a centrifuge in a way. And what you 0:22:47.440 --> 0:22:50.120 do is you put the copper wire into the grinder 0:22:50.520 --> 0:22:54.960 and you pedal the petals. Some grinders actually grind that 0:22:55.080 --> 0:22:57.800