Shaft Seal Decision Matrix

Raw Notes: Conference Call with Dr. Vincent Kitio of ACREST

PP

·         Requested rainy season – mid june to mid august (2 months) deign layout, power plant, technical drawings

·         Prepare report with current data

·         Fault in old turbine, no opps for redesign – this would allow congruence of agenda for production

·         Redesign, tweak design on the ground

·         Investment – money to pay for the plans – small turbine must be in separate housing; sheet steel; not housing -  10K for pen stock and civil works

·         Develop 2^nd site for project; student learning; community assist;  25K with some $ from ACREST; 1/3 each partner

·         During 2 mos in summer, build turbine and connect existing;

·         Document all data in report for future fund raising

·         Shelf turbine – costs, are there resources; building more realistic

·         Weaknesses: water leaks; adapt techniques; then purchase the ‘packing’ (from Nairobi, but need more/longer);  Disc – 10 mm; 8 discs cut Purdue, weld in Cameroon; $2-3K for purchases

·         Leakage problem: >leakage wears bearings; welding not well done (rushed); lost blade. Pelton turbine much smaller, not a problem

·         Pelton too small for Cameroon site, Need 40-100 m head to generate power

·         New cross flow designs: water capture to replace capseal (VK does not recognize); Nigeria new center on flow; VK will speak to Momanyi for more info

·         Controller – electronics student (purchase aVR – not same thing) need ELC (control of load; regulate frequency and load

Dr. Lumkes – seals – damage to outside or poor performance?  Leakage creates bleeding, risky, opening/closing did not work well.  Time allows adjustments on the ground.

Raw Notes: Anthropology Meeting with Dr. Riall Nolan

Cultural Suggestions
We need to expand our ability to communicate
Broaden our language options
Find out who is there:

Is everyone there the same ethnic group?

               Minority groups?
               Do they settle for a long time? Move in and out?
    What do we mean by community?

What language do they even speak?

How is it governed?

           Have more control over the language
           Broaden options for language
           Checking if what we asked is what we meant
           Ask questions in different ways
           Ask questions of different people, in different ways, and with different interpreters

Can’t rely on one person’s agenda to communicate

           Put together all knowledge at night
           Questions change every night
Small village, way to ask the questions ..> RISK! (what the risk of talking to us)
Find whos in charge, get into the culture (buy coca-cola), prepare to be there for an hour or two, take time, ask different people, focus group better than individual families, they are not going to lie, neighbours are there
1. talk to whos in charge
2. focus group
3. spend time with the NGO people, ask questions about the people
no govern= the oldest person in the village
ASK FOR ADVICE
Bambu seeds, other things in the water, ask the villagers, make them participants
1) “Beliefs about water”
           What does “water” mean?
2) People who live there, what do they already know?
Water witch: “dig here”
           Even in Lafayette
           Magical? Public? Property? Theft/right to use water in this well?
3) What works really well here, and why they work so well?
Ex) they care about mosques in Senegal and churches in Europe, although they cannot build other things or dump garbage into other areas
Ex) each “tomato seller” contribute “$50” to safety box every month, and once a year, one person gets it all
Ex) he could be genius, another could be the best hunter, so they are good at something, like machine shops on our basements
Where are spare parts? Indicators for checking up soon? Who’s paying?
Ownership of milling machine? Who owns it?
They could label me as a Vietnamese in the war
Who’s governing the village? Chief?
           Saw us going house to house, what do I risk when I give them answers, some gifts to appreciate? “We are just want to here to say hi?” Talk for several hours, focus group (with neighbors, can’t lie since they are here, but prevent “truth”), we are here to ask for advices? Introduce ourselves, we’ve been working here for a while, we are all students and are here to learn
Same ethnic group? Same religion? Moving in and out? Find the oldest if no chief
           But you’ll know n taxi or ACREST, so who’s in charge?
NGO related to other things like religion? We could be considered missionaries through their eyes if our NGO was related to church
Price about spare parts, time will come in 6 months and we need to fix it. How do you manage it? Talk about what is going to happen when maintenance is needed
“They don’t own the turbine, it’s for wealthy people like ACREST so why do I care? They didn’t engage me.”
This village is paved because the president is from the same tribe, so he wants his village to have paved roads

Surveying Advice
Plan ahead of time how we are going to manage whatever knowledge is gained
Inputs -> ”The pump” -> outputs

Questions like:

               What does the turbine need?
               Who is going to fix it?
               How do we know it will work?
               How do we keep it in check?
               Where does the water go after?
               Who owns the electricity?
               What are we going to do with the electricity?
               It’s not about the turbine, it’s about what the turbine helps people to do
Conduct a domain analysis
               Three months can get us some really good information if we approach it right
Data Collection
               Go to peoples’ houses with a gift just to say ‘hi,’ be prepared to stay there for an hour or two
               People love to be asked for advice
               Use a focus group
               People won’t want to talk about money
                               Especially not in public
                               Definitely not in the first meeting
               Ask how they plan to maintain it
               Set the problem: we are going back to Purdue and not leaving them money
                               See what ideas they have
               Ask them what they have done in the past as a community that was successful
Brief people at the start of an interview
                               Alert them that there will be a form
                               Ensure that they know they don’t have to talk to us if they don’t want
1. Not relying in one person
2. Make sure they understand
3. Ask the same questions in different ways
Trip: Split, ask different questions
No concerns about the different data
no money questions
several meetings
4e. What’s gonna happen when we are not there and let them bring creativity and imagination to the resolution
Pull out the consent forms in a friendly way, informal conversation, ask the same question multiple times
You’ve been living here for years, what have you done successfully as a community?
How to frame questions to get “real” answers?
How does the community see our project?
Rapid Assessment/Knowledge Managements
Open-ended questions
           Delphi Method of Qualitative Assessment
           During the Cold War, technical question about how to launch missiles from here to Moscow, but what if it really happens? It turns out after detonating them, dust cloud will form and block the sunlight and have “nuclear winter” and we’ll be starved to death
Local approval (IRB form)
Local invitation (letter saying we are okay to interview them)
Narrative
Script
Questionnaire (semi-structured)
           Potential questions
Flyers/information (what we are gonna do)
Pay the local to carry out interviews
Using travel grants?
“Trubine broke, couldn’t work out as well as we could, there are a lot of things we don’t know, in order to work it out, we want to learn something here.”
1st meeting: “What are things that I should know?”
Chief can suggest a committee for our project
Make project committee as time moves on, but know who are the right people
Start with group meeting they know why you are here, pass out some copies of consent forms
What are some of successful things that you all did together, working with ACREST and what worked well?
Westerners have hypothetical mind thinking 10 years later, but some in Africa don’t think that way, “I don’t know, how do I know 10 years later???”

General Mentality
The people we work with are not answer machines; they are participants in the project with valuable input
Hypothetical questions don’t work with Africans.
Questions “evolve” and knowledge management, ask further questions and adjust questions as we collect knowledge and a “big picture.”
Perception towards Aid
           Handout? Apply here, opportunities, etc.
           Need to find funding together
           Teach them how to write proposals for grants
                       No need to learn because of handouts
                       See if they accept to learn, look at long-term partners
African people are very entrepreneurial
Senegal people, “talibes” or “students” to other cities, earn money, and bring them back to “religious leaders” to build mosques
           Multibillionaire “corporates”
Community ownership
           Find ways that are already doing maintenance or fixing
           Do they have community “fundraising” efforts?
Essential needs
           School fees
           Why they defaulted from harvesting hybrid seeds?
                       Can sell them in open market and pay for other needs
                       So give them extra seeds and the rate of default declined
Following NGO trucks
A student from southern Sudan did Peace Corp in Ghana, and the system was identical and kids think “the same” way as he did during the wars
Take every opportunity to talk to the locals. Every encounter will tell us something.
Be open and transparent in workshops, what we want to do, heres how you clean it, we need people who come regularly
We are not real human beings but mostly entertainers doing weird things, from their perspective.
Check on our communication throughout our time in Cameroon

Meeting Minutes 3/4/2013

Meeting Minutes 2/25/2013

Turbine Redesign Decision Matrix

Hydro Team Map 2013

Location Survey for Water Filter

The videos above are mainly for a sub-team working on the water filter. They should give a good idea of what area with which we are dealing.

It partly shows our existing water filter

It shows a surrounding area

Bamboo seeds for which we have to watch

It gives you an idea of the size of gaps in the existing filter

Meeting Minutes 2/18/2013

Meeting Minutes 2/11/2013

Meeting Minutes 2/4/2013

Design Process Review

For those who aren't yet familiar with the design process, which we will be adhering to this semester, here is a brief description via NASA:

Engineering Design Process

 

The engineering design process involves a series of steps that lead to the development of a new product or system. In this design challenge, students are to complete each step and document their work as they develop their lunar plant growth chamber. The students should be able to do the following:

More after the jump...

Jan 2013 Turbine Damage

More pictures after the jump...

Turbine Design Documentation

Spring 2011 Design: Analytical Calculations

Spring 2011 Design: Fluent Analysis

Spring 2011 Design: Parts Schematics

Spring 2011 Design: Finite Element Analysis

Spring 2011 Design: Alternatives

More after the jump...

Preliminary Anthropological Survey

During our visit in Bangang, Cameroon in May 2012, we conducted short one-on-one interviews. The information we gathered is by no means complete; however, it helped us glimpse into residents' expectations, values, and perceptions.

Summary

- Local residents perceived our project as a positive impact on their community.

- Many perceived water as a public entity rather than the private.

- They believed that our project would not affect the quality of water.

- Electricity is also publicly available so long as the expensive cost can be covered.

- Many are willing to undertake fundraising efforts to support. Some of them, however, didn't appear genuine, perhaps because school tuitions and other expenditures may be of higher priority than electricity.

- Many saw themselves as local beneficiaries of our project.

- Benefited activities include ironing, radio, television, charging cellphones, and light.

- One thing we felt certain that many residents valued was agriculture. Many of them were farmers.

- ACREST secretary informed us that many people either do not pay for various reasons or only pay less than what they are supposed to pay. 

- ACREST secretary also suggested to gather more funding and install meters to track the actual usage of electricity for sustainability and transparency.

- Usually a positive relationship existed between ACREST and its local community, although some residents might be unaware of ACREST at all. 

More after the jump...

Language in Bangang

The more I learn about anthropology and linguistics, the more apparent is the connection between culture and language.  In all good conscience, I feel an obligation to introduce all interested contributors on this project to the local language(s) in the Bangang region.  While the official (national) language in this region is French, I will be focusing on two of the indigenous languages.

The primary language in Bangang is called Ngiemboon, also known as Bamileke-Ngiemboon, Bamileke-Ngyemboon, Nguemba, Ngyemboon, and it has at least six dialects: Batcham, Balessing, Bangang, Bamougong, Balatchi, and Batang.  There is a relatively rich literature published on the subject including 10 English, 2 French, and 10 vernacular (indigenous language) publications. 

More after the jump...

Relevant Documents

Over the years, we have discovered a number of very applicable documents for education and reference purposes.  We will use this page to disseminate these resources.  To access the documents, click the links below the image.

This first document is a fantastic simplified introduction to micro-hydropower systems from the Hydraulic Energy Program, Renewable Energy Technology Program, and CANMET Energy Technology Centre (CETC):

Micro Hydropower Systems: A Buyer's Guide 

This second document will surely prove useful as we learn about the power distribution network at ACREST and mini-grids in general.  This comes courtesy of Allen R. Inversin at the International Programs department of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association:

Mini-Grid Design Manual

Meeting Minutes 1/28/2013

Introduction and Team Organization Slideshow