William Kamkwamba, I salute you.
This is William Kamkwamba. William lives in a small village in Malawi. When he was 14 his parents could no longer afford the $80 per year tuition to send him to school. They where farmers, and there was a drought. Farming + Drought = Poor. So what did William do? Cry himself to sleep and throw a pitty party? Hell no! He decided he would go to the library and learn on his own. When he was there he came across a book titled: Using Energy. From the article:
Using Energy described how windmills could be used to generate electricity. Only two percent of Malawians have electricity, and the service is notoriously unreliable. William decided an electric windmill was something he wanted to make. Illuminating his house and the other houses in his village would mean that people could read at night after work. A windmill to pump water would mean that they could grow two crops a year rather than one, grow vegetable gardens, and not have to spend two hours a day hauling water. “A windmill meant more than just power,” he wrote, “it was freedom.”
Keep in mind that he had no money, no tools (aside from a couple of open end wrenches), and no supplies. And to top it off he could barely read English. He accomplished his task by studying the diagrams in the book and learning the terms associated with them, then going to a junkyard to find parts for his project. The entire windmill was made of junk! Not only did he build a windmill from scratch, he also build all the necessary switches, breakers and wiring from junk too.
William and his first windmill
After the success of his first windmill, he started to get noticed. He now attends the Pan-African Leadership Academy in South Africa, and has co-written a book with Bryan Mealer called The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. The bottom line is that William is solidly brilliant and tenacious – nice work.
Read the full story at Gizmodo
Well, as the title of this blog implies, i love robots (or does it imply that I’m afraid of being murdered by robots?). I came across