Fab Lab Pabal, India
Students and faculty of Vigyan Ashram have created many remarkably inventions to make living in their environment easier, some with assistance of the Fab Lab. Here are some of our favourites:
1 DIY hearing aid kit
This hearing aid prototype is low cost, easy to repair and lightweight for the user. Students who suffer in crowded classrooms from sitting far in the back or from defective hearing can use this kit to improve their education. Similarly, hearing loss caused by aging can also be assisted cost effectively. The project report on this device brings forth a valid point, that village people can literally work a lifetime to earn enough to purchase a hearing aid from Western medical sources.
2. Egg Incubator
Launched in 2013, this product has actually been produced and sold several times by Vigyan Ashram. Again cheaper than a store bought item, this low cost egg incubator consumes less power than its expensive counterpart. It is also fully, analogue, automated and easy to operate. After a number of tweaks to the technology, the device hatches at a 92% success rate, making it once again a very viable alternative. They are currently designing a machine that will incubate 15,000 eggs and run on solar power!
3. Biogas based electricity generation
Vigyan Ashram has experimented with generating local electricity using locally produced biogas. The initial idea was that biogas could potentially fuel the facilities’ engines, water pump and the lights in the campus housing. At present, the biogasis mostly used for cooking, as it easily overheats, but could still results in a cheaper and easily accessible option for power in rural areas if those maintenance issues were ironed out.
4. “Human power based energy solution to nomadic tribes”
Through a collaboration with sustainable living non-profit Save Bombay Committee (SBC), this project addressed the lack of power among India’s nomadic tribes by introducing bicycles that produce energy. Of concern to Vigyan Ashram was the statistics that tribal schools located in remote areas spend 50% - 70% of their evenings without power, causing problems to students. Four hours of electricity can be generated by just 30 minutes of cycling with the machine attachment, which is battery operated, lit by LED at night and able to fit onto any bike model.
