Below is a message from the Full Belly Project, which sent us this news along with a haiku.
Students innovate
food and enterprise bolstered
Full Belly Project
Students Engineer a New Type of Nutcracker, Sweet
While the Nutcracker Suite is a winter tradition, on December 16th, engineering students at Humboldt State University (HSU) will unveil adaptions to a different kind of nutcracker, one that is a real gift to the world’s poor. Working with the Full Belly Project, seven HSU student teams adapted the acclaimed Universal Nut Sheller as part of an international service learning partnership.
Students enrolled in Engineering 215 Introduction to Design were contracted by the non-profit organization The Full Belly Project (FBP) to expand the usefulness and accessibility of the Universal Nut Sheller to a broader range of people. Deployed in nearly twenty countries, the UNS shells nuts with increased speed and efficiency, increasing incomes of subsistence farmers in developing countries. HSU student teams worked on:
1. Reducing the cost and cement content of the UNS for manufacture in West Africa
2. Utilizing waste plastic bags to make the UNS molds in Haiti
3. Adapting a US version of the UNS to serve as a source of funding and outreach
One of the designs proposes the reuse of waste plastic bags in Haiti by weaving and ironing to form a mold for the UNS. The product invented by the team is capable of holding casting concrete, yet is made with simple and available tools out of a waste-stream material.
Environmental Resources Engineering instructor and President of the Appropedia Foundation Lonny Grafman provided design guidelines, feedback and expertise to the engineering students. Lonny stated, “These designs exemplify what students are capable of when engaged in the design process with real clients addressing global challenges.”
The Full Belly Project has recently won several prestigious awards such as the Tech Award Laureate of the Tech Museum of Innovation and the Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award. In addition, the technology creator, Jock Brandis, has been honored as a “CNN Hero” and was most recently awarded The Purpose Prize. The Executive Director of The Full Belly Project, Jeff Rose, recently visited HSU to provide guidance to the student design teams. Rose stated, “This collaboration is a monumental success and will pave the way for the future of The Full Belly Project and hopefully will become a new model for how International Development work is done. Lonny Grafman’s students have proven that we can truly accelerate innovation for the greater good.”
The partnership between the Fully Belly Project and HSU is making positive connections with people across the world and engaging U.S. students in the effort to reduce world poverty. Please come see the innovations at the public award ceremony on the HSU campus from 5:00 to 6:00 PM on Tuesday, December 16, 2008 in Science D 17. For more information, contact Jeff Rose at jeff.rose@fullbellyproject.org or Lonny Grafman at lonny@humboldt.edu, (707) 826-3649.
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December 15, 2008 at 2:21 pm
That’s a partially regurgitated HSU press release from last week, but the release has photos.
December 15, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Thanks for the nice post.
@Anonymous More photos at http://www.appropedia.org/E215_Introduction_to_Design_projects
December 16, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Great work by these students! That’s exactly the sort of thing that we need more of in this world: practical, constructive innovations not designed to more efficiently exploit poor people, but to help them help themselves.
And thanks, Heraldo, for this very positive and heartwarming post. I’ll be e-mailing the link along to friends – we could all use a bit more good news in our media diets.
Despite the many problems it faces, HSU is a wonderful asset to this community, and as this story illustrates, to the larger world as well.