Categories
BlogSchmog

Appropriate Technology projects

Appropedia is a wiki for brainstorming and reporting on efforts to advance ideas in appropriate technology, tech that makes use of native and available materials to fill needs of local users. The Appropedia* wiki hopes to be an overflow repository for articles deemed “inappropriate” for Wikipedia. In additional to the project work, there is also a category for theses. Projects thus far include:

  • GreywaterGreywater is the term for the used water produced at a particular site (except toilet water, which is known as blackwater … and now gives a new connotation to my favorite Doobie Brothers song). A greywater system segratates grey from black, filtering the grey so it can be reused.
  • Solar Charged Lawnmower — Convert an old, broken (engine) gas mower into an electric-powered mower by installing an electric motor powered by a 12-volt battery, itself charge from photovoltaic panels. Materials can be utilized to prevent them from ending up in a landfill.
  • Cobb Bench — From the Old English word meaning “lump,” cobb construction uses earth, “the world’s most prevalent building material.” A cob house uses no forms, bricks or wooden structures, mixing clay with other materials by hand. This project built a bench for an elementary school.
  • Parabolic Solar Cooker — A paraboloid focuses rays to a central point. Used for centuries by the Greeks, Aztecs, Incas, Romans and Chinese, a parabolic cooker concentrates light using curved mirrors or cobb structures with reflective glass or metal items. This project started with an old satellite dish.
  • Living Roof — A living roof include as part of the design both vegetation and soil (or some other suitable medium). The roof has to contain the resulting root system and handle the water needs.
  • Vermicomposting Bin — This composting design is pentagon-shaped (aesthetically pleasing, but also less likely to have compost stuck in corners) and is layered (for ease-of-use and aeration).

The solar mower is of most interest, although it has a $700 pricetag once all is said and done (well, $694, since we’ve got the $5 broken gas mower already). Most of that cost is the electric motor and the solor panel. When we first got to Bloomington, we bought an electric mower, but it was tethered by a long extension cord and didn’t survive the high grass when we missed a week mowing. Maybe the 3/4HP motor listed on the how-to page (the equivalent of a 3HP gas motor) would need to be upgraded.

* BTW, I think more attention should be given to naming wiki spaces. I’m guilty of this myself (ahem, PoliticWiki), but it would be nice to see names of communities and not the medium. Let’s have a moratorium on all things -apedia or -wiki and instead start identifying the people using the tools.

By Kevin Makice

A Ph.D student in informatics at Indiana University, Kevin is rich in spirit. He wrestles and reads with his kids, does a hilarious Christian Slater imitation and lights up his wife's days. He thinks deeply about many things, including but not limited to basketball, politics, microblogging, parenting, online communities, complex systems and design theory. He didn't, however, think up this profile.

8 replies on “Appropriate Technology projects”

[…] The Affilipedia (see the end of this post about the name) is an open resource for affiliate marketers. This wiki contains new information on affiliate marketing, serving as both a how-to and an ecyclopedia. There is also an affiliate marketing blog by Shawn Collins that complements the wiki (or the other way around). […]

I agree about the name. I came up with it, but I can tell, with the growth in popularity of wikis, that in a year or two from now I will probably regret it. In fact, already some others have complained about the name, Appropedia, because it does not explicitly talk about Sustainability and Development. Do you have any non-wiki, non-apedia suggestions?

Thank you,
Lonny

I’ve got a professor/advisor at the School of Informatics — Eli Blevis — who is focusing his career on Sustainable Design (the idea that with creation of a new thing comes destruction of an old thing that must be taken into consideration when designing). I’m meeting with him this afternoon, so maybe we can brainstorm some name ideas for you. Stay tuned …

Thank you Kevin. I look forward to hearing about your potential brainstorm. It is definitely a little late to be changing the name, and as you say the creation/destruction dichotomy must be addressed. I am about to change servers as well. The current size of Appropedia has outgrown the host, and the site is way too slow right now. This time of host change may be a good time to change the name. What do you think about buildcapacity.org as a name? BTW I excerpted this conversation (I hope that is okay) over at Appropedia, where more people have been thinking about, and commenting on the name.

Eli was overbooked on Wednesday, so only had time to chat about changes to his spring design course. I’ll revisit it with him next week when I see him again.

It will be difficult to change a name, as far as the existing community is concerned. But I think in the long run, identification by community will serve the project well. It might be interesting to start a new wiki page filled with free-form word associations stemming from appropriate technology. After you get enough of them, group them up and let them speak to you. It may produce some good naming ideas.

Although this has everything to do with sustainability issues, the main term that pops up from looking at the wiki are re-use and local. You are advocating first and foremost for taking materials in the area and meeting the needs of the locals, sort of MacGyver meets Inform. Maybe it would also be worthwhile to go through the list of sustainability organizations in the Environmental Yellow Pages and see what terms are being used elsewhere. You may want to avoid overly-used names, or purposely choose them to more easily identify with that community.

Thanks for the update. I have my weekly meeting with Eli in about 12 hours, and I’m hellbent on spending at least 10 of those minutes on the site. He just submitted a very interesting and important paper to CHI on sustainability-centered interaction design.

I’ve been up to my eyeballs in academic rigors, hence the lack of quality blogging this past week …

Comments are closed.