Arusha School Inventors Kids Club

The Duke students, Katie, and I are running some after school programs at Arusha School, an English medium primary school where Pelle taught for 25 years.  The after school programs are: theater, origami, Chinese language, soccer, drawing, dancing, singing, LTP, and inventions.  Can you guess which one I’m doing?  Inventions!!

When we first started the inventions class, my primary school students didn’t know what an invention was.  They understood the word “discovery” a little better, so I used that the first few days.  We spent the first week playing games about creativity and imagination and exploring the idea of inventions in the context of where we can find them in Arusha and where the need for different inventions come from.

Since the students will be inventing their own creations starting next week, I had a local Arushan inventor, Bernard Kiwia, come to speak to my class on Tuesday.  Bernard is the head engineer for Global Cycle Solutions (http://gcstz.com/), a social enterprise business that was started by a group of MIT students after meeting Bernard at the International Development Design Summit at MIT in 2007. 

Bernard and I with my Inventions class.  Front row (L to R): Latifa, Adelfina, Collins, Joseph, Pius, Derek; Back row (L to R): Janifa, Zakati, Theresia, Debora, Evelyn, Mary, Michael (Jackson - haha!), and Raymond

Daniel, the outreach coordinator for Global Cycle Solutions, also came with Bernard.  A former MIT student, he helped organize the International Development Design Summit where he first met Bernard, and has lived in Arusha for 2.5 years now.  He is fluent in Kiswahili and translated Bernard’s presentation into English for me. 

First, Bernard used his laptop to show the students pictures of some of the inventions he has created.  Since he used to be a bicycle mechanic, many of his inventions are made out of parts of bicycles.  There were many, many inventions, but they included: a chair made out of bike parts, a bicycle phone charger (run on bicycle power), a bicycle powered corn sheller, solar powered water heater, bicycle powered clothes washer, etc.  He even showed a video of the bicycle corn sheller in action. 

Bernard showing the students some of his inventions.

Next, Bernard used the problem of “long time spent shelling corn by hand” to demonstrate how he could solve the problem with a simple invention.  Often, families will buy a large amount of corn from a local farmer.  Then they will spend hours hand shelling the corn onto a tarp.  After shelling the corn, they take the corn to a miller, who grinds the kernels into cornflour.  The families then use cornflour in their cooking, especially to make ugali. 

Joseph shelling a cob of corn with his fingers.  Students waiting for Bernard's secret solution!

He used a strip of metal from a pot and, using a machine created in Tanzania, created grooves in the strip.  He then used pliers to bend the ends of the strip and clasped the two ends together to make a circular piece of metal with grooves in it.  He gave the students a cob of corn and asked them how long it would take to shell the cob by hand.  2-3 minutes was the answer.  He then took the grooved, circular metal tool that he had just made and shelled the cob in about 5 seconds.  The kernels went flying everywhere around the classroom and the students squealed with excitement.  His demonstration was such a great example that highlighted a very relevant problem and a very realistic solution in the context of life in Arusha.

Bernard making the simple corn sheller.

Bernard showed the class that his sheller could shell a cob of corn much faster than with Joseph's fingers.  Kernels are flying everywhere!

Finally, Bernard talked about how to invent something.  He made some great points that the students really picked up on:

1)      Inventing is a cycle; it won’t happen in a day.  You have to test, modify, and re-test your invention until you get to a point where you are satisfied with the end result.  

The invention cycle, courtesy of Daniel and Bernard from Global Cycle Solutions

2)      Use the materials that are available to solve the problems around you.  Just like the metal from an old pot to make the corn sheller, use resources that are readily accessible to help you design and build your invention.  This will generally save time and money, and will make your invention more realistic for more people.

The students were SO excited to see all of his inventions and they did not stop talking about his visit for the rest of the week.  The next day I had them come up with a name for their group, and they decided on “Arusha School Inventors Kids Club”.  So awesome!!   

I could tell that Bernard's presentation really inspired them and contextualized the idea of inventing and solving problems in Arusha.  I’m so glad that the students have a local role model that they can look up to - I can now focus on reinforcing the ideas that he introduced and using his work as an example as I guide the students through their own invention cycles.  I can’t wait to see what they come up with – stay tuned!!

To see some youtube demonstrations of a couple of Bernard's inventions, click here for a demonstration of the bicycle phone charger and here for a demonstration of the bicycle powered corn sheller.

Word of the day: uvumbuzi - invention