Pedal Powered Washing Machine
Posted on February 4, 2014 Comments (8)
It is very easy to forget billions of people alive today do not have access to electricity, clean water and things like washing machines at home. As I have said before I love appropriate technology. Even more than that I love to see successful deployments of appropriate technology that make people’s lives better.
It is also great to see kids with the perseverance to make these products to meet needs they see around them. We need to do what we can to encourage these types of kids. They are the future engineers and entrepreneurs that will make lives better for the rest of society.
Remya Jose, a 14 year school girl from Kerala, India created this wonderful machine. Another version of it, has the normal bike pedals (closer together, instead of spread out, on opposite sides of the machine, like in the video).
As far as I can tell the original video was from 2008 (and Remya created the machine in 2005). I haven’t been able to find the current status of the product, this is the best I could find (from 2008). Turning these innovations into products that succeed commercially is very hard.
If I had control of a national development program (or if I just become super rich and have millions to devote to making the world better, I think an effort like this would be something I would try) I would put working with these kids to make the products work very high on my list of priorities. The learning process and creation of engineers and entrepreneurs would be extremely valuable on top of any success the products had.
Related: Appropriate Technology: Washing Clothes by Machine Instead by Hand – Washing Machine Uses 90% Less Water – Engineering a Better World: Bike Corn-Sheller – another bicycle washing machine – Automatic Dog Washing Machine
Categories: Engineering, Products, Students
Tags: appropriate technology, Engineering, exercise, India, kids, Products, science fair project, women
8 Responses to “Pedal Powered Washing Machine”
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February 4th, 2014 @ 5:51 am
hey, you may want to change the “hundreds of billions” thing..
February 4th, 2014 @ 9:03 am
Hundreds of millions, not billions. Things aren’t THAT crowded! 🙂
February 5th, 2014 @ 12:20 am
Done. I first wrote hundreds of millions then updated it but not quite accurately :-/
February 8th, 2014 @ 2:36 am
Great post. I’m from Kerala as well but live abroad, and if anything stands out from the rest of the societal problems in that place, its the quality of education. Now I didn’t know that there was an Invention Committee that looked at rewarding the efforts of school children. 25,000 entries? I’m curious what the others were!!
February 11th, 2014 @ 1:17 am
Great idea…!!! And that’s what Kerala is the best education and Literacy state in India. All the best for this young girl invention idea. Hope and wish to lead a great success in future and invent more innovations.
February 13th, 2014 @ 6:35 am
Really great accomplishment. We all should learn from these heroes.
February 19th, 2014 @ 7:30 am
Excellent idea…!!! In addition to that’s exactly what Kerala is the greatest training and also Literacy condition within Asia. Take care just for this younger lady technology notion. Trust and also desire to direct a terrific success within long term and also create much more enhancements.
February 12th, 2021 @ 5:09 pm
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