“If you stay, we will kill a chicken!”

Hey guys, we’ll explain the title in a bit, we promise!

For all of Manoj’s much needed help these past two weeks, we promised to take him to see the movie “3 Idiots” in Bhawanipatna.  By the time our schedules worked out, the movie was sadly out of the theater.  Thankfully, Indian “copyright bending” allowed us to easily purchase the film.  So yesterday, we brought Manoj home with us and took him out to a gluttonous meal at our favorite restaurant.  (Matt wore pants for the first time after all of our goading.  He finally recognized that all of the stares were because of those scandalous shorts.   Even the waiter felt the need to comment: “Sir, if you do not mind! I am thinking the sun today is rising in the West instead of the East because Sir has worn long pants!”)  Later we watched “3 Idiots,” a comedy about three engineers, back in the Gram Vikas office on the laptop.  We all had a great time, even with our varied Hindi skills.

Today we checked up on the smaller batch of “test” bricks (a few different variations of sawdust, clay, and sand proportions). They were dried, fired, and cooled, so we analyzed them for strength. Unfortunately, the first piece (100g sawdust, 300g clay–closest to the ratio the Biomass Team had given us) immediately broke without any testing.  We suspected this from the previous bricks since the clay in the village is drastically different, but we wanted to double check that we had not made an error.  For the remaining bricks, we performed two tests.  For the first, we hit the bricks repeatedly with the end of a stick.  This was to simulate the action of placing wood into a chullah.  In the brick of 50g sawdust and 300g clay, a small dent formed in one corner but the rest of the brick remained strong.  The one corner was probably weaker than the rest of the brick, but nonuniform bricks must be expected.  The brick of 70g saw dust and 300g clay was weaker and broke.  The other bricks survived the test.

In the second test, we dropped the bricks from two different heights.  The results are pretty visual so we’ll fill you in when we get back.  Basically, the bricks with more sawdust cracked and broke first.  When they broke open, we saw that the insides had clearly blackened. This meant that the bricks probably should have dried a little more, but since they had the same drying time this shouldn’t significantly affect our analysis. The biggest test will be whether they survive the trip home.

We finally got to eat lunch made by Manoj’s mother at his house. The villagers have been joking that they kept trying to feed Matt and Peter lat trip, knowing that they didn’t have enough food: “The poor boys just didn’t understand.” With our better language skills this time around, the three of us ate PLENTY on behalf of the meals they missed!  Manoj’s mom cooked us heaps of rice with daal and cauliflower tarkari, served on a fresh green banana leaf.  It was delicious! She wanted us to stay the night, too, and promised us the aforementioned chicken as a special treat. Our humanitarian sides let the poor guy live another day.

After lunch, we fired the bricks made in the traditional way that Rashmi showed us.  Manoj helped us create a small kiln by stacking the bricks and covering with wet clay.  If this is hard to visualize, don’t worry.  We have plenty of pictures to show you the process that we unfortunately can’t upload right now. Before we catch our train tomorrow afternoon, we’ll run over to the village and check up on the bricks.

Manoj gathered us survey results from nine different households from all three hamlets, so that was a huge help. We’ve had them translated back to English. It’ll probably be excessive to try and describe the results for you guys now, so we’ll just give you a general idea of the results: the women do most of the repair work, they do use it for heat in the winter, and they often leave it burning overnight. We’ll chart it out in a coherent way back in New York.

We can’t believe that this trip is almost over.   From learning technical aspects to forming relationships with the villagers, we had a ton of fun and gained a lot in these last two weeks.  This is our last post from India.  We’ll see you soon in cold New York!

-Amrita and Danielle

Lessons learned…

Hey all, we have a lot of new updates to tell you about. Last time we left off we had just visited Karnivel. We had made 8 bricks using the mold we brought from home and our presumed knowledge of an acceptable clay-water-sawdust ratio for the brick mixture. Two days ago the bricks were ready for firing, and so we went to Manoj with a picture of the kilns Pete and I spotted this summer while walking through the fields near Leinguda. Because we only needed to fire 8 bricks, the process would not be so elaborate as to require a large kiln structure. Rather, Manoj helped us build a small firing set up exactly appropriate for 8 bricks. It started by placing four large sized stones forming the corners of a rectangle on the floor. On top of this formation he set a bed of small sticks, and then on top of this placed the 8 bricks, 3 on the bottom, three on the next level, and then one on top spanning the gaps between the bricks below it. (One of the bricks fell apart when we removed it from the mold, so we only fired 7.) After this, we found some larger wood pieces and surrounded the stack of bricks with them, essentially building a pyre of bricks.  We tended the fire for about an hour and half, adding more sticks to the side to keep it from dying down. In future prototyping efforts, we should likely consider the brick making process as a fundamental variable in fuel consumption. In order to fire 7 bricks, we used a good deal of wood and produced a very smoky fire.  (I would imagine 2-3 full fire places worth of wood was required for the firing.) That said, it is likely that as implementation scales up, brick firing will be much more efficient as kilns can be made…

Manoj told us to leave the fire until it burned down, and that he would check it in the morning to see that the bricks were okay. This is where it gets kind of complicated. Yesterday morning we headed in to Bhawanipatna, excited and apprehensive as to how the bricks would turn out. We were unsure whether the firing process was thorough enough, questioning whether or not all of the sawdust in the bricks would fire off to make them porous enough fpr a combustion chamber. We also didn’t know if the bricks would hold up. Unfortunately, this first batch of bricks did not make it. Upon checking them the next morning, it was visibly apparent that the bricks were not stable enough for a combustion chamber. When we picked them up, this was confirmed. The fired bricks were dusty, and with any additional force applied, crumbled to the touch. The main culprits are likely the clay type, as we started with a very dry clay taken from the ground’s top layer,  as well as an overabundance of saw dust.

What followed was a reexamination of our approach to brick making. Before coming to India this winter, we proceeded ahead with the assumption that the ratio that worked for us  in the states–12 parts water, 9 parts clay, and 5 parts water–would hold in the field as well. Placing a little bit too much faith in Aprovecho’s tutorial on making a biomass stove, coupled with the results we had obtained in the civil lab with the Improved Biomass Stove team, we failed to question enough the efficacy of variant clay types on brick strength. Without appropriate foresight, at least this is how I saw it, we planned the trip around dilligently getting a prototype finished, without first obtaining more knowledge about the nature of the clay and the traditional methods of brick making in the village.

I’m going to admit that after seeing our bricks fail, and realizing in hindsight we should’ve had a different approach from the beginning, I was truly disheartened. While this was the appropriate time to get over myself and just rethink our approach, I was initially demotivated–which is the last thing we needed at the moment. Thereafter however, we managed to turn the day around. Well, the villagers did…

While we spoke with Rashmi about why our mixture was unsuccessful, we started getting the materials together for more bricks. Rashmi essentially explained that he knew the brick mixture wouldn’t work because there was too much wood dust, and that perhaps we should consider including sand in the mixture to add more structural integrity to the bricks. He helped us consider different new ratios for brick mixture, and we ultimately put together four small batches of different ratios that are drying as I type. Essentially, the ratios are testing what mixture of the dry clay and sawdust will survive a firing, in the hope that a mixture will produce a porous enough brick that is still sturdy. Once we set this up, Rashmi asked us to walk with him so that he could show us something.

We gathered our things from the powerhouse and followed him to his home. Behind his house, he took us through a trail that led to a field where about 12 men were digging up clay from  a trench about 3 feet deep and 20 feet wide. They were adding water and stomping the clay to mix and wet it further. Next to the trench was an area of hundreds of bricks drying under hay. Despite the fact that just about all of the men making the bricks were drunk, they were highly efficient, with two molds with handles. According to them the handles make it much easier to flip the molds once filled with clay. One of the village boys was working with them who I had never seen before. Rashmi explained that he is one of his students, but often has to skip school to do work like brick making to help his family make money. They are very poor. Accordingly, they make bricks in bulk and then fire them in kilns, selling then for 1 rupee per brick to people looking to make houses.

Rashmi asked the boy to help us out, and so he grabbed a bunch of clay and started mixing it on the ground in front of us. As he mixed, we added saw dust, creating a mixture that was more or less subjectively eyed based on whether or not the mixture would maintain its shape without cracking once removed from the mold. Thereafter, he started by wetting the mold, and then sprinkling a thin layer of sand in it. He also covered the outer surface of the clay-sawdust mixture with sand before putting it in the mold. This is how they get the bricks to slide out from the mold immediately without waiting for the clay to dry at all. Because of this technique, they can produce hundreds of bricks in a day with just two molds. And it took us 2 days to be able to produce 8 bricks!

As we made 10 bricks using the village technique and our molds, the men working explained that our molds were not good. For their purposes, they prefer two parallel surfaces of the mold to have excess wood extending beyond the rectangular substructure, acting as handles. They also explain that making two molds attached is terribly inefficient in light of their technique. (It looks like we have some work cut out for us Biomass team!) After about 20 minutes, we had completed 10 bricks that are now drying among the others. Rashmi expected them to be ready within 1-2 days.

What stands now is that we do indeed need to continue to rethink our prototyping approach in the village. Standing and watching the villagers make bricks professionally was briefly embarassing, but most importantly humbling and enlightening. We can’t imagine what Rashmi was thinking as he watched us spend so much time on so few bricks. I think that because he watched us make bricks over the summer, he assumed that this technique was done for a specific reason. After we fired, it became apparent to him that we just didn’t have enough experience making bricks. In short, we learned a really important lesson about a participatory rural approach to development yesterday. While we’ve been to small events that talk about the process of engaging the villagers in their own development process, it may be that we can only really understand the effectiveness of this technique once we are in the field. We needed to  see for ourselves how incredibly competent the people of Purunaguma are at tasks that are  foreign to our skill set as students from a developed country. While I’ve read case studies about people in villages performing tasks better than those “experts” that come to work with them, it seems I only grasped them on the surface. The idea of a participatory approach seems to make perfect sense, but it was only when I saw the capability of the village men and boys that I really understood the value of engaging people in the process of building this chullah prototype. Had we known to take a few days to just ask about the traditional brick making process, a modification of it for our own needs could have ensued early on in the trip. I’m fully aware that the type of foresight required for this type of trip planning is likely an unjust burden to place on the travel team and I still think we’ve gotten a tremendous amount done here in so little time. Essentially I just want to highlight how powerful a lesson we learned yesterday, and hope it is obvious that this can give us some crucial perspective as we approach the next semester and our implementation trip. We will be sure to update you guys ASAP about the status of the bricks, and are trying our best to bring back samples of both types of clay as well as fired bricks.

On another note, those of you on the India team might be aware that some type of first-aid and basic treatment program in the village has been a secondary goal of ours for a while. After seeing Dipti, she shot out some ideas about how she envisioned the next steps of livelihood improvement with the advent of the soon-to-be community center and mill. She brought up first aid, recalling that we used our med kit this summer to help clean and close up the village mason’s infected finger. (Apparently, everyone in the village still remembers this, and a few people have mentioned it in passing.) So, anticipating some days of wait time as our new bricks dry, we went to the Bhawanipatna market last night and put together a basic med kit for the village. This includes antibiotics, electrolyte replacements for diarrhea, ibuprofen for breaking fevers, wound treatments supplies, etc. (While it sounds elaborate the medkit only came about to about 15 USD.) Today, we came in to Purunaguma early, starting at the village daycare center and moving on, discussing to our best ability the importance of first aid. Several people voiced issues–there seems to be a lot of arthritis pain among the adults in the village, and two children were brought to us with fever. We also visited the head of the village committee, who lives in Leinguda. He helped us gather some of the tribal villagers of Leinguda so that we could explain what we had done.

Treating the people in the village was fun, and it was a good experience as we got to interact with more people. It is nonetheless clear, that some more advanced model needs to be worked out for an emergency first aid program in the village. We have been working on a manual for the supplies we bought, and hope this can be a good starting point for a sustained and collective initiative in the village for first aid and community medical needs.

Danielle and Amrita will update you guys soon on the last stages of prototyping. We still need to fire our bricks, and at the same time, work on a finalized instruction manual for building a prototype. We are hoping that Manoj and Pabitra will be able to continue work on this when we are gone, and plan to discuss this with them more thoroughly as soon as possible.

-Matt

Questions answered…

So first to Emil, who commented first.

Has anyone thought about turning this into a sustainable business? Yes. We are looking into creating a model that engages the Purunaguma youth and Pabitra, the machinist, in a business dynamic. Since we last came, Purunaguma has made a lot of progress using the benefits of electricity for small scale business initiatives. As of now, they have a tire repair station, a lantern charging station, as well a small shop that serves chai and freshly cooked food. On top of that, the parts for a grain mill and oil press have been build by Pabitra and a local electrical engineer, and they will be installed in the community center. Dipti is considering business models with the villagers for potential production. With that said, the foundations of entrepreneurship are in place for the village youth to make this chullah production project a small business. We are also looking into meeting up with a local forest ranger, data from this summer in hand, to discuss the environmental benefits our project poses. Accordingly, we may try to scale up by involving the Thamal Rampur bloc government.

Now for Hannah’s questions…

Can you explain more of what you mean by mobile handle?  Does this mean you can take it off and put it back on? Sorry I wasn’t more clear about the mobile handle. What I mean by it being mobile is that the stovetec handle is currently comprised of a plate with two loops on it, through which a wire handle is strung through. Accordingly, the handle flaps 180 degrees up and down. This summer the villagers found this model weak and problematic, and Aksha voiced this problem once again during our most recent discussion. So, we’ve proceeded ahead with a fixed, immobile steel handle.

Any talk of how revenue from making and selling stoves would work?  Are they thinking of sharing profits community-style or allowing the youth to operate their own small business? My understanding is that the village youth will likely turn this into one of their projects, although Aksha’s wife’s view was interesting. They agree that the young people will likely be in charge of making it, but they have a pretty universalist vision, where anyone who wants to make one can, and no one will be excluded from the profits. My guess is that Manoj and Rashmi will spearhead the effort. They are primarily interested in the wellbeing of the villagers, and not in making money for themselves. Accordingly, they will be great mobilizing agents. We plan to discuss this more with Manoj and Rashmi in the following days.

What is your schedule?  Are you going to be able to get controlled cooking tests done (even w/o CO, PM data)?  On the prototype you are making there? So our schedule is still predominated by our efforts to complete the prototype. Since back at home we were unable to procure an indoor air pollution meter, we haven’t really thought about testing too much—and don’t exactly have the time to do so. Hopefully the bricks will be fired as soon as possible, and the prototype will be completed with a few days left over so that we can test the prototype’s performance thereafter.

When you do cooking tests, I’d be interested to know if all three pot sizes get adequate heat transfer?  Will using one pot size over another be more efficient?  How do cooking times and wood use scale with pot size? We will definitely look into this once we have finished the prototype. As we learned this semester, brick making is a paced process. Even though we have ideas about how we will proceed once the prototype is done, we must be patient and allow the bricks to dry. If we don’t, they will likely explode in the kiln and set us back quite a bit of work.

And Dhristie…

Is there any way you can get the input of the village women?  Great question. We are  interested in considering all opinions in the village. There are occasions on which we may speak with women, but with that said we will really be in need of their opinions once we actually have a prototype to talk about! As yet, the combustion chamber isn’t finished, so we don’t have anything to discuss. (We’ve largely asked questions of the people who had tested with us this summer and are already well versed in what we’re trying to achieve.) When we spoke with Aksha, his wife was taking part in the conversation. She has opinions about the project, which Aksha makes a point of repeating. Since she has cooked with the stove her voice is seriously valued. Hopefully we can get a more diverse body of opinions when we get people cooking with it!

Andd last but not least, Pete’s suggestions…

I would recommend taking some of the village youth with you when you talk to pabrita and go into bwanipatna to find supplies necessary to build the stove. Its best to have the villagers start to take ownership of the project as you guys leave (though sounds like they are really participating which is great). Also maybe try and put one of the vilage youth in charge of the system to ensure things are still moving when you guys leave. Excellent suggestion Pete! So we’ve been speaking with Manoj just about everyday, and as per the posts you may have ascertained that the guys in Purunaguma are helping us prototype when we are there. I will try to get Manoj to come along with us next time we talk with Pabitra. Of course, the ultimate idea we get about implementation will depend on how we resolve the division of roles between Pabitra and the youth. So, it’d be great to just facilitate a conversation between them soon. I think Manoj has tacitly taken charge of the nascent stages of our project, but a comprehensive idea of how the village youth will be involved hasn’t formed yet.

The next thing is that I think it might be better to buy rebar from Pabrita (doesn’t seem to cost much) since if he is going to be part of the manufacturing process anyways (handles, possibly rebar top) its good to start the relationship now. So, just to clarify, Pabitra does not sell steal rebar. He helped us procure it from someone who does in Bhawanipatna. Accordingly, the village rebar should still be fair game—especially because Pabitra visits Purunaguma frequently enough with the construction of the community center and the mill. He knows what kind of materials they have, and knows Rashmi and Manoj well. It shouldn’t be a problem that we use village rebar. One top of that, the relationship is going excellently. Now that we can actually talk with him, he is seriously interested in our project and frequently reminds us that he respects the work we are doing. Anything he can do to help, he does. Today, as we put handles on the prototype, we sat around and talked about Orissan politics, etc. He really enjoys speaking with Amrita and me, and he seems to think my Hindi is really great. He initially spoke to me in the informal, calling me “tum” which asserts his age difference as I refer to him as the respected “aap” and “Pabitra-ji.” However, yesterday he corrected one of his imperatives suddenly, and thereafter has referred to me as aap. It may be that I’ve read into it too much, but I think his increasing respect for us is very clear!

Finally as going hand in hand with the previous two suggestions, I think it might be best to try and formalize the system of production now in the middle of your trip so you can help guide it (teach ppl and show them where to purchase material) and give it authority before leaving (work with the villagers to establish specific roles and rules for ppl and maybe leave a couple hundred rupees for continuing building). Even if you don’t have all of the information on what will work exactly, starting some sort of system wll be good to keep the villagers more invested and involved in the project. Great suggestion. I agree with you. Tomorrow we are going to the village at around 11 to discuss firing the bricks with Manoj. At this point we should hopefully be able to hold a serious planning conversation about where the cookstoves are going. The momentum is definitely here though! The men talk about the design frequently, convincing one another of the benefits the project poses and thinking of ways they will deliver once they’ve taken ownership of it fully.

Oh one other thing. On the survey, try to ask questions that reveal how much it costs (I mean time and effort here for cost) them for their traditional stove. For example, questions on how often do they do maintenance, how long does it take to rebuild one, etc. Then also maybe ask questions on how much they are willing to pay for an imporved biomass stove. Also don’t forget other important questions like do they use the traditional chullah for heating during the winter etc. All of these questions have been asked in the survey, and as per Amrita and Danielle’s most recent post, Manoj is helping us spread that out throughout the three hamlets.

With the 4 pieces of rebar as the top, how will the pot sit on all four pieces? I am imagining 4 uncut pieces, with 2 pairs of parallel pieces making a checkerboard pattern. Also is this easier to build then the 3 piece triangle-like pattern? As stated in the post, we made sure all pots worked with the rebar formation. THe four overlapping pieces work, successfully stabilizing the three main pot sizes. They all sit quite flush. Yes, the four piece pattern is easier to build than the three piece, and it is for sure somethign that the villagers are capable of doign themselves.

Have you guys figured out how to seal the edge of the tin can and the combustion chamber without filling the whole inner area with concrete (makes it too heavy)? Not quite yet, but it’s still on our minds! We have yet to resolve this, but I think a solution will be easy to find given our track record so far. Another design issue that Rashmi immediately rejected, was the use of the tin rectangle removed from the tin can as the grill to support the wood. It is definitely too flimsy, and will most likely not suffice. We also must consider preventative measures for rust, which will likely just be protective paint that can double as a decorative tool.

It’s really great to answer your questions guys–keep them coming. When we work out answers to your questions, it helps us iron out our own thoughts in an organized way. Thanks a lot for the encouraging words!

Getting a handle on things…

We’re still traveling back and forth from Purnaguma and Bhawanipatna (to meet with Pabitra and get raw materials). We’ve been making as many bricks as possible given the time they need to dry, so we should have extra in case something goes wrong. Our next challenge will be to figure out the logistics of firing the bricks. Hopefully they’ll all be dry and ready in the next day or two and we can continue on finishing the prototype.

Yesterday, we officially met Dipti, as well as her family and friends.  We explored Purunaguma with them while Dipti reconnected with the villagers.  After they saw the powerhouse, we all decided to trek up to the water tank.  It was a difficult hike up approximately 150 m of rocky terrain, but it was a beautiful sight from the top.

Next, we followed them to Karnivel.  We didn’t think our car would make it, but somehow we managed.  To access the village, we got to cross a river by foot!  The village is much smaller than Purunaguma–around 20 households.  Despite less physical man power, the people of Karnivel are extremely motivated and have really made a lot of progress towards installing their microhydro system.  Our guide exhibited this commitment as we walked up past the powerhouse to the water tank.  He is very particular about getting everything to work perfectly and kept stopping to provide us with his own input and concerns.  Their system is nearly finished and will provide roughly 8 kW of power.  Hopefully it will be up and running soon!  Overall, the village seems to be progressing quite well with running water and efficient management.

Given the smaller population, Karnival should be a great candidate for the low-watt cooker project. Together with Dipti, we came up with a possible local solution for a heating element.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with the project, the heating element is the main cost (in the U.S., they can cost $30 or more).  Currently, there are metal coils on the side of the powerhouse used to dissipate heat, which Dipti suggested that we might look into. As team members of the low-watt team, we are very excited to see this and are eager to get back to working on the prototype.

Today we met with Pabitra and got the sturdier handles attached. We’ve been having a few setbacks due to electricity outages, but we finally got it done.  (Hence the cheesy title–sorry!)

We mentioned in  our last post that we were putting together a survey about chullah usage and maintenance. We tried handing it out to households ourselves, but we encountered some problems with that approach. For example, at Ashok’s house, they kept thinking that we meant for them to answer the questions about the new chullah, and that this meant they had to get one. In the end, we decided to give the stack of surveys to Manoj, who is distributing them to different families across all three hamlets. We are waiting for the results, and will update you on how that is going.

Work is going well and thanks for all the comments (keep posting!)

-Danielle and Amrita

P.S. Matt’s scandalous shorts are getting us a lot of attention in the city, he seems to be very popular with the locals! Yesterday, a boy even handed him a food gift as we were leaving for Purunaguma. Haha! Ok better sign off before he catches on….

Sundar karibo…

Hi everyone.

So last time we left off we had procured most of the materials necessary for building our prototype. That day we headed to the village and made bricks with the new brick molds we’ve brought from home. It seemed however, that making only four bricks at a time wouldn’t be expedient enough. One prototype will require just under six bricks, and we’re only allowing four to dry as we speak. As per this summer, the drying process takes approximately four to five days before it is okay to remove the bricks from the mold. (These new bricks will be narrower however, so that time should be shortened a bit.) Today we bought a saw, nails, and wood in Bhawanipatna and made another mold in the village. Every time we have a new task in the village, more people seem interested in helping. Today Rashmi wasn’t around, but one of our friends from this summer, Sabha, came and helped us make the mold with his brother. Later on, Manoj finished helping build the community center, and came up to the powerhouse to help make bricks. Afterwards, he invited us to his house to drink some chai and talk with his family. He has a dog , Bitu, who remembers me from this summer. She gets very excited whenever we come because we pet her a lot. Manoj’s monkey didn’t seem to like us as much…

On a more exciting note, we’ve come up with a solution for using rebar as the top of the stove that the pot will sit on. We considered the design in relation to all pot sizes used by the villagers for cooking. The smallest pot size places a lower bound on the size of the square created by the rebar formation. The most common middle sized pot sits on top of this well, and so do flat-bottomed pots. The largest pot sizes fit in the cooker well once we remove the rebar (it is removable.) This is all probably a little difficult to visualize…unfortunately I’ve tried to load the pictures and for some reason they haven’t appeared on this post…will figure it out soon!

Once we had figured a formation, we brought our idea to Pabitra yesterday to see if it could be built. It took them about five minutes to process the tin can for the rebar.

All of our work with Pabitra has introduced an interesting and pressing question to our work during this trip. When we went to the village yesterday, we saw that they had hundreds of feet of 10mm steel rebar left over from the microhydro project, and Rashmi said it could be used for the improved cookstoves. At the same time, Pabitra is very interested in helping us build the prototype, and we think he’d definitely like to be involved in future implementation. It stands that we have to resolve what exactly will be completed in the village, and what will be completed at the machine shop.

After installing the rebar on the prototype, we then discussed possible design solutions for handles. He went through a cabinet in the shop and pulled out two manufactured handles that he had procured in the market for approximately 12 rupees. The handles are much sturdier than the ones on the Stovetec model, but are nonetheless mobile. Recall that the test subjects from this summer unanimously requested that the handles on the stove be fixed. Having mentioned this to Pabitra, he brought out another solution that seems to be much cheaper. Essentially it’s a 6-7 inch piece of steel bent to form a handle. Pabitra thinks that it will cost 100 rupees for 15 feet of this steel.

With these two options and a decent amount of time left in the day, we decided to head to Purunaguma to ask the villagers what they thought of the two options. Upon asking Rashmi, he thought that the mobile handles would be preferable because they looked more convenient and better manufactured. Thereafter however, we consulted Aksha, the father of the family we first tested with. He strongly voiced his opinion that the steel piece would be better—sturdier. Then, while talking to him on his property in front of his house, about 6 of the village men on the committee came over and joined the discussion. They immediately got really excited about the nascent forms of the prototype, and started shooting ideas back and forth about where they could take implementation. They all agreed that the village boys could make them and sell them, and anyone who wanted to learn to make them could do so and join in the process. The positivism was really exciting, and this is exactly the type of momentum we wanted to instill in coming to Purunaguma this time! Nonetheless, our prototype, made of a tin mustard oil can with a picture of Hanuman on it (a god) and some steel rebar poked through the top, is not the most visually appealing thing in the world. It was pretty funny when Aksha said “sundar karibo,” which means, “We’ll make it pretty.” They plan to do this using concrete and paint. I’m so happy this meeting took place—it really shows signs that the people of Purnaguma are taking ownership of our project.

Tomorrow we plan to meet with Pabitra to attach handles to the prototype. Thereafter we’ll likely bring it to the village and get some opinions about it. As I write, we’re printing out an exit survey translated to Oriya asking some questions about how the people of the village use their chullahs during the winter…

Hope you guys comment! Feedback really helps! Hope everyone is having a great break, and we’ll be sure to post again soon.

Happy New Year :)

Hey guys! Matt here writing our first post from Bhawanipatna.

We arrived here two days ago after being picked up from Kesinga a little before noon. We briefly got settled at the Gram Vikas office, and then headed straight to the machine shop to talk with Pabitra about our plans to build an improve biomass stove prototype. (As a reminder, Pabitra is the machinist who helped build the microhydro generator housings in Purunaguma and Karnivel. We met with him this summer and started discussing our chullah project). In general, the meeting went very well. We were able to have fuller conversation with him this time around, and it is clear that he is interested in helping us with the project. That said, it’s amazing how much a language barrier can hamper efficiency. The people in Bhawanipatna seem to be able to communicate with us through a mixture of Oriya, Bengali, and Hindi. With Amrita’s Bengali and some of my Hindi, it seems were able to get much more done in much less time. On top of that, communication seems less speculative. When Pete and I were here with very limited language skill, it was hard for us to be sure of anything that had been talked about during meetings with people like Pabitra. Now everything is much clearer, and it is much easier to get things done.

Our first order of business in the city was to thoroughly document how to obtain the materials necessary for building a prototype. We started with Pabitra, explaining to him our design plans and asking him where he thought we could get most of the materials. Luckily, given the really simple nature of the prototype design everything we need is highly accessible in the Bhawanipatna market. Through Pabitra, we managed to procure approximately 70 feet of steel rebar (10 mm diameter) for 510 rupees (approximately 12 US dollars!). His estimation is that this will suffice for building approximately 14 chullahs, and with his help, we’ve begun to consider design issues related to using rebar as an alternate for the cast plate seen on top of the Stovetec model. (As yet we haven’t resolved the design, but I think we should be able to figure it out.) Pabitra is also helping us find sawdust, which we will pick up this morning, and we’ve already managed to buy 3 tin oil cans for the rocket stove’s exterior. Also, he managed to procure a driver for us for through the 15th. It’s costing us 500 rupees per day plus diesel, which is approximately 12 dollars… :0

Thereafter we went to the village which looks beautiful. The weather is very mild during the winter, with temperatures of about 70 degrees F during the day and much cooler temperatures at night. The scenery outside of the city is a bit more abundant this time of year, so it was a really nice trip out to Purunaguma. Upon arrival, we visited Rashmi and verified that we would be able to fire the bricks for the combustion chamber in the village, which was a huge relief. Now that we know we can fire the bricks in Purunaguma, the process of finalizing the combustion chamber should be a bit easier. Rashmi and Manoj joined us up at the power house were we started by washing the tin cans off before we processed them. We then cut the cans as needed for the design.

In a few minutes we’re off to the village for two days, where we will make bricks with the new mold designs the improve biomass stove team worked out in the civil lab back at school. We’re also trying to learn more about how the villagers use the chullah, so that we can consider how our improved design will fit into the everyday purposes of the people in Purunaguma. Thus far it seems like a locally made prototype will definitely be feasible. It stands that we need to still figure out who will be involved in production, and how.
Will send more updates soon, with pictures!

Hope all is well there! We miss you all. Happy New Year!

First Post!

Hey guys,

So after three flights and long waits in between, we’re finally sitting in Bhubaneswar at an internet cafe. Amrita got us a guest house (read: Amrita’s dad got us a guest house — she doesn’t plan.)  to rest in, but Matt is not letting us nap.  Instead, we spent the day exploring some temples around the city.  Tonight we are planning on calling Dipti and Pabitra to figure out some logistics for our arrival in Bhawanipatna tomorrow.  We’re catching the train tonight at ten.

We’ll update more when we get the chance!

-Amrita, Danielle, and Matt