In January, Catapult kicks off a new design project with Wello in Rajasthan, India to explore the challenge of reliable water access. More than one billion people in the world lack regular access to safe water, and many more that haul water and other liquids such as milk or diesel fuel on a daily basis for their livelihood or business.

Building upon existing research such as IDEO and Acumen Fund’s Ripple Effect  project, Catapult and Wello will spend the next few months prototyping, observing, and testing ideas and new features with partners, with users, business owners, and local manufacturers in Rajasthan. Our goal? “ To create reliable tools which enable people to efficiently access and distribute water,” says Lead Designer, Noel Wilson.

This isn’t the first time Catapult and Wello have joined collaborative forces. In 2009, Catapult did a brief feasibility study around incorporating water sanitation technologies into Wello’s famous WaterWheel. (Check out the results here.) Needless to say, we’re excited to kickoff another design project with this amazing organization! Watch our twitter feed and newsletters to see how it goes –

CONTACT:
Noel Wilson, Lead Designer, noel@catapultdesign.org   @noelgaelwilson

The importance of considering product branding and experience has found its way into the BoP design space as an increasing number of social ventures recognize the significance and opportunity it presents in building a customer base. A recent survey on on-line shopping indicated that 70% of surveyed consumers would turn to a competitor after a negative on-line experience.  Moreover, results also suggest that customers are more likely to share a negative experience with their friends and family. In the BoP product and service industry, where marketing strategy depends on positive word-of-mouth between potential customers, building a reliable brand and experience is critical.

This week Catapult launches its first project with EcoZoom, a product manufacturing and sales company focused on making mass distribution of cookstoves possible.  The EcoZoom management team has a long-standing relationship with Approvecho Research Center and StoveTec and within the past 12 months has already sold thousands of products to entrepreneurs, social ventures, aid organizations, and governments around the world.  Catapult’s task:  to strengthen the product brand by marrying the EcoZoom product family as a recognizable, desirable, rugged and affordable line.

Stay tuned to see the results of this collaboration!

Image: Simpa Networks

The need for financial innovation in technology access is clear, and within the labs of innovators like Simpa Networks fresh perspectives are brewing on how affordability of other empowering technologies can be realized. Their model may very well offer a hand up out of the poverty trap, but with many other hands reaching up  there are is a need for further creativity and action in this space. Mobile money, alternative purchasing schemes, microfinance, gifting, and even new currencies (see bitcoins) have their potentials, impressive results, and sometimes bitter aftertastes/side effects…but the exploration continues…and it is making everyone from the mightiest corporation to the greenest startups take a step back and question the economic paradigms that create our existing boundaries of distribution. It may not require the blatant economic revolution that some predict (see Zeitgeistthemovie), but it will require a sidestep rather than one back, a lateral take to how we all (not just distant markets) buy, own, and share. Simpa Networks are not framing themselves as revolutionaries (not yet anyway) but like they say their approach is radical, and we expect that this is just the beginning of their ventures into access innovation.

Simpa Networks sells high quality solar energy systems on a progressive purchase basis to underserved customers in emerging markets through a network of authorized dealers. Consumers take home a system for a low down payment, then purchase energy service (kWh) in small user-defined increments using a mobile phone. Each payment also accumulates towards the final purchase price and once fully paid, the system unlocks permanently and delivers free solar energy (taken from Simpa Networks).

Simpa Networks commissioned us to assist them in designing their pilot, and in creating a kit that could be used to train and guide their staff  on data collection techniques, with a strong emphasis on Human Centered Design methodology.  We imbued the same HCD principles, that Simpa Networks wanted to train it’s staff on into the design of the pilot itself. We mapped the people, hierarchies, environment, constraints and agendas involved to get a grasp on how to simplify, streamline and optimize the pilot process.

Pilot Kit Prototype

`The documents that framed the approach had to be useful and legible to all levels of staff and stakeholders, and had to work in both digital and printed state. The training tools were designed to work as guidance for the Simpa Networks staff throughout the process, helping them stay consistent in their methodology, and synchronized in their deadlines and duties.

The ‘Meeting of the Minds’ session…discussing Pilot methodology

Catapult collected insights from a broad range people experienced in the challenges of piloting, and have compiled this wisdom into an open resource (Pilot Planning Words of Wisdom) which is soon to be available on our publications page. Having access to a rich network of professionals experienced in the testing of innovation really benefited our process.

Image: Simpa Networks

The Human Centered Design element was custom fit to the requirements of the Simpa Networks pilot, and the desired quality of data that they would ultimately collect. Decades of literature helped us inform this, as well as our own experiences of observation and user connection techniques. For more info check out our project page.

Image: Simpa Networks

Simpa Networks have now  begun their pilot, our relationship continuing deeper into the process, to help them communicate, prototype and gain insight to ensure their data is as rich  as possible, to properly inform their next steps.

We arrived in the village of Matala, Tanzania, with three substantially different prototypes ready to assemble with villagers – in this photo you can see Noel instructing the villagers in how to drive the cart prototypes we had brought with us.

The following two weeks were chock full of design exercises, ethnographic research, iterative prototyping, community meetings, and endless cups of chai. The insights garnered from our two weeks of working closely with the villagers proved invaluable. The villagers were able to use the carts daily to perform their regular work (e.g. collecting water for family and farm use) and the carts were passed from family to family on a daily basis so that we might get as many perspectives as possible. It was a real joy to walk around the village and hear the familiar rumble of the carts as they rolled by, full of water cans and driven by women and children going about their lives and finding the carts extremely useful.

After three days of fetching water, chatting with mamas, surveying carts, visiting homes, taking photos, and meeting villagers, we attended a community meeting in the local school where the carts were discussed in-depth. The villagers were asked to recount their experiences and provide input on how to make the carts better. We spoke with the 26 villagers for almost an hour and walked out of the meeting with an excellent idea of how to make the carts better.

That weekend we spent two nights with a local family, participating in their daily lives – observing and taking notes all the while. We learned about their family, work, religion, chores, habits, routines, expectations, joys, aspirations, and struggles. This up-close-and-personal interaction with our end-users enriched our understanding of the people we were designing for and will ultimately allow us to produce a more refined and tailored hand cart that will integrate more easily and, most importantly, usefully into their lives.

The second week we spent working in the nearby town of Himo with local artisans to modify and improve the carts – integrating the villagers suggestions. After two days of impromptu design sessions, haggling with welders, and running all around town we returned to the village with three dramatically improved carts.

The rest of the week was spent visiting families, going to markets, sitting around the water tap watching people collect water, surveying water carrying vessels (mostly plastic jugs and buckets), and chatting with anyone we could find about how they transported water and other materials from place to place.

At the end of our time in Matala we attended one final community meeting – led by Noel – in which we asked the villagers for feedback on the carts we had modified. They were delighted with the changes we had made and felt that the final carts were serious improvements on the ones with which we had arrived. As we expected, there were still suggestions and critiques of the modified carts – all which will prove useful when we return to our studio in San Francisco and begin work on a final cart design.

We then left the carts with the villagers and began the long journey home, full of ideas and enthusiasm for how to make the best possible cart for the villagers of Matala and, hopefully, the rest of eastern Africa.

Catapult Design have been absorbed in all things ‘cart’ as our project with Anza Technologies moves on to the next step.

With a little help from our friends we have designed, made and broken a bunch of early prototypes and constructed a set of sturdy detailed prototypes ready for testing on the rugged trails around Marangu. We have had access to some wonderful minds and facilities, from Martin Fisher’s contextual wisdom to San Francisco’s brand new Techshop (and it’s lasers). We’ve also used the famous topography of our wonderful city to test the physics and usability of our designs, from Golden Gate Park to Russian Hill.

Now we are off to the Kilimanjaro region of Tanzania to work with our client to determine the potentials of the prototypes, and to discover first hand the contextual realities of our end user, their community, economy, and landscape. Through respectful inquiry we will uncover the local demands related to the mobility of resources, determine how they inform our design, and assess how well the prototypes are satisfying them. We will also be hunting for unexpected considerations,  disguised assumptions and insightful stories, with our ears and eyes hopefully doing more work than our mouths. In preparation for our trip we are collecting appropriate methods of inquiry to uncover this valuable information, and any input and ideas to help us on our way are welcome!

Stay tuned for updates as our trip progresses…We will return in early February to implement our discoveries into the design in preparation for pilot testing.

Anza’s CEO Drew Durbin and Lead Engineer Alex Surasky-Ysasi came to the Catapult Design Studio for a one week intensive brainstorm and strategy session. We covered as much as possible (including a mile of  whiteboards) from intense stakeholder analysis, existing product reviews, usage cases, contextual issues, business strategy, through to wheel  technologies and concept generation. Catapult involved a wide range of consultants, including the Whirlwind Wheelchair team, a select brainstorm panel, a handcart guru, as well as Zack the tyre guy, and Brian the ‘caster master’, with over 160 years of dealing in carts and wheels between them all!  Thanks to all for sharing your knowledge and investing your time and minds into the success of the project.

Anza’s visit has allowed for a much deeper understanding of the project, enlivened our working relationship, and provided a map to lead our next step. We are now solidly set on designing Anza an low cost handcart frame for rural Tanzanian farming families, and as there is literally a lot riding on these wheels, making sure that they fit the bill is our biggest challenge. Stay tuned for more.

Photo courtesy of Anza Technologies.

In rural Tanzania, as in many developing nations, farmers struggle to move the heavy loads necessary for their work: carrying water from a reliable source to their fields for irrigation is difficult and moving crops from their fields to sell at the market is also a challenge. Consequently, the output of the farmers’ land is often poor and they are frequently unable to make a livable wage from their work. Nearly half of the world’s poor living on less than $1 per day are rural subsistence farmers.

If these farmers were able to more easily transport water (both for irrigation and family consumption) and to carry heavy loads to the market, their ability to generate income for their families would increase and ease their work burden. To this end, Catapult was recently hired by Anza Technologies to assist with the industrial design and in-country pilot testing of their new pushcart. This cart is being designed with the rural Tanzanian farmer in mind and will allow him to carry more than 120 liters of water, or loads of more than 250lbs, for a retail price less than half that of competing products.

Watch our site for more info as this new project unfolds!

Jeremy in the belly of the wind turbine, with Nili supervising

Editor’s note:  This is the second blog in a series related to the testing of the wind turbine at the NASA-Ames wind tunnel in Mountain View, CA.  Check out the first blog in the series for some context!

Working squeezed/scrunched up in the belly of the Army Aeroflightdynamics Directorate 7’x10’ wind tunnel gives one lots of time to think about the world and our place within it, and how these “tiny” wind generators (the term “micro” has already been claimed for systems up to 5000 watts) can help contribute to an improved quality of life for some.  Remember the target market is people who either have zero access to electricity, or who perhaps depend on charging worn out car batteries in distant grid connected towns – you pay bus drivers to transport your battery back and forth – to get a trickle of power.  How people use that first few watt-hours of high quality energy they have access to fascinates me, since while we sometimes have an impression that everyone else wastes scarce resources too, in reality people with scarcity tend to know the value of conservation and wise use best – especially when their costs are high.

Extending their day by a few hours with an efficient light is usually the first use – most unconnected places seem to be close to the equator where the days are always short, and recurring costs for candle/kerosene lighting are cumbersome/prohibitive – allowing people to read, do homework, and maybe even earn extra income.  Charging batteries – for flashlights, the radios all campesinos carry to the fields, and cell phones – is another priority, hopefully reducing the number of discarded disposable ones that litter the ground.  Both of these applications require very little energy – for us it would be worth just pennies worth a day, but for people who all year around are used to calling 6 pm bedtime… priceless!  And yes, one of the first appliances to appear is the ubiquitous television, often for soap operas and soccer matches, but also news and education.

Charlie investigating Chinese instream picohydro generators (~30 watts) in a Vietnamese market

Just a hundred watt-hours a day will do all kinds of things when the appliances are efficient, and in a breezy location it shouldn’t take an expensive turbine to provide this.  As a slightly technical aside, it is best to remember that people use energy to do things while we have a tendency to express the output of wind generators (and photovoltaic panels, and microhydro installations, and nuclear power plants) in units of power (watts).  The wind tunnel tells us how many watts we might generate at a given wind speed, but winds fluctuate so we can’t count on getting that much all of the time.  Commercial turbines are almost invariably rated just in watts, and you always have to ask “At what wind speed?” – and you’ll quickly find that they choose to rate at some phenomenal (and usually unrealistic) value, like 25 miles/hour (~11 meters/sec).  Southwest Windpower has now started doing the right thing by helping you estimate how much energy (in watt-hours… each one of these helping to perform a useful task, such as a one watt LED lamp aiding a kid do homework for one hour) you might expect to generate from their products, after making some assumptions about your local wind speed distribution.

This brings us to the question “How do we extract power (and energy) from the wind – which comes originally from the sun?”  The maximum power available from the wind, per square meter of turbine swept area, can be easily calculated from the equation

Power = ½ rAV³

where r is the density of air, A is the swept area of the turbine, and we see that the power increases as the cube of the windspeed (doubling the windspeed gives 8 times as much power), so that while there is lots of power produced at high wind speeds there is almost none available at very low speeds.  Our Lenz blades sweep out an area of .75 m² (the Savonius configuration we tested is .45 m²) and we know that we can only realistically have a fraction of the energy the wind contains – Albert Benz said that 59% is the maximum, but more like 30-40% is typical for small tubines like ours.  So the amount of power you can tap into depends on how much the wind blows, and with like so many other things (like per capita income) the averages provided to us by the government don’t always do us enough good – some days it doesn’t blow, some days it blows too much, and luckily some days it blows just enough for your turbine to fill up your batteries for the

Weibull distribution (wind speed vs. probability) for an average wind speed of 6.6 m/s and a shape factor of 2.

coming week.  That’s the concept of the distribution (vs. and average), and luckily the wind speed variability tends to follow a Weibull distribution, a statistical function, where just two variables describe the distribution.  These are the average wind speed and a number related to the general amount of time with no or low winds (the shape parameter), and this site does a much better job of explaining it than I can here – and they allow you to type in your power vs. wind speed data (such as from wind tunnel testing), plug in a shape factor, and get the anticipated energy output (say in watt-hours/day) at your target location.  Now you can buy the right number of storage batteries to get you through the wind-less doldrums, and compare the cost of your tiny wind system with your other electricity alternatives – including continuing to charge your car battery for the equivalent of $3/kW-hr, and waiting a long time for the grid to arrive.

Maximum power vs. wind speed of the Lenz 2 turbine configuration

Taking the raw wind tunnel data Tyler showed (torque and power vs. RPM) we can determine the maximum amount of power a given blade set or configuration can extract from the wind at each speed and plot it – that upward curved shape is very important because it tells us that not much power is available to us at low wind speeds (say, <10 mph) and this is an unfortunate fact of life.  Our experimental method did not include a generator to turn the winds power into the electrical power we need to run appliances, and there will be losses in this conversion process – we expect it to be ~75% efficient – so we have to take this into account, giving us the ability to get about 25% of the energy embodied in the wind – not bad if the resource is free.

As mentioned, a single “power rating” for a turbine is not very useful (and only meaningful if the wind speed it was measured at is associated with it), but people are used to hearing just one number so we may need one.  Catapult Design will tend to rate these turbines (a set of blades plus the associated generator) at more realistic wind speed values, like 15 mph (7 m/sec), and then we’ll do our best to try and characterize the wind resource at a specific locale.  If we choose to rate at 15 mph, for example, then the real power output of the Lenz blades is ~30 watts, and the wind will need to blow at that particular speed for ~3.5 hours/day to provide 100 watt-hours of energy per day to a family or small business.  Blowing at half that speed for twice as many hours does not do us much good, since the blades of VAWTs often don’t start turning until 8 mph, and at 10 mph we might have to rate these tiny turbines at only a watt or 3.  For estimation purposes, Weibull wind speed distributions with very low shape parameter values would be an example where it blows very little, much of the time.

Its unfortunate that life is never as simple as it needs to be – it seems like that if a family wanted to consider buying a tiny turbine at X dollars, to decide whether it is worth it they need that power performance curve for it, decent information on their local wind conditions, and some idea how much electricity is worth to them (for example based on how much they are presently using and the cost for charging that car battery, or how much more they want to use – say if their neighbors pay them for charging cell phones).  Now if we just knew the probable lifetime and annual maintenance costs we could start to understand the cost of each future watt-hour… what an exercise, and don’t forget that investing in all forms of renewable energy is tantamount to buying at one time all the electricity you will use for the rest of your life, which is not an easy decision to make.

The end of September saw a major milestone completed on the wind turbine project – we finished our wind tunnel testing at the NASA-Ames research center! The experience was fantastic and so far we have been blown away by the quality and quantity of data we collected. While it is still a bit too soon to publish our complete test results here (we still have a lot of analysis to do), I nevertheless wanted to get started by explaining our test set-up and posting a few photos from the tunnel.

Test Set-up

Since the beginning of this project we have focused on two vertical-axis turbine designs: Savonius and Lenz (see photos below). The major purpose behind our wind tunnel testing was to characterize the performance of these turbines, allowing us to select the most promising design and move forward with developing the alternator that will generate the electricity. In order to characterize the turbines, we needed to collect data on how they perform in different wind speeds while under different loads.

The end result of this testing will be a series of power curves (see chart below) describing the mechanical energy generated by the turbine as a function of wind speed and turbine speed (rpm). We also explored three different angles of attack for the turbine blades on both turbine designs to see how they impacted turbine performance.

The theory behind our turbine test is this simple equation:

Power = Torque x Rotational Speed

When the wind blows it hits the turbine, causing it to spin. In spinning, the turbine converts the energy contained in the wind into mechanical power. In order for us to figure out just how much wind energy is converted into mechanical power we needed to place the turbine in a flow of wind with a known speed and then apply a known torque load to the turbine while measuring the effect of the load on the turbine’s rotational speed. Referring to the equation above, we would supply a known torque and measure the rotational speed, thereby allowing us to calculate power.

The way we mechanically applied the torque load was relatively straightforward. We coupled a DC motor to the bottom of the turbine shaft and tried to turn the motor opposite the direction of the turbine rotation (see image below). Since the torque produced by a DC motor is a function of current, we could apply a known load to the turbine by applying a known current to the motor.

This test set-up, while elegant, nevertheless proved problematic as the motor we sized proved unable to resist the amount of torque the turbine was generating and we quickly overheated the motor. Another way of applying torque to the turbine was needed, fast. Thankfully, the NASA-Ames facility is full of advanced testing labs, many of them working on rotating equipment. The day after we identified our problem we had a torque cell in-hand and connected to the turbine shaft (see image below).

This torque cell contained a strain gage mounted on a shaft that output a voltage based on how much stress was applied to the shaft. One end of the shaft was attached to the turbine and the other end had a mountain bike disc brake attached to it that could apply a drag load that would slow the turbine and provide the strain that the gage would measure. This set-up allowed us to apply our known torque load as desired and the testing went on as planned. The only downside was that we were unable to maintain a steady torque and were forced to take our readings dynamically as the torque applied and turbine speed varied. This scenario was less than ideal, but we still managed to collect a copious amount of data that should allow us to compensate for any dynamic and inertial effects.

Ultimately we collected all the data we wanted and, at first blush, the results look great! My next blog post will focus on that data and our resulting analysis. Many thanks to Malcolm Knapp, Jeremy Kimmel, Sarah Felix, and Charlie Sellers who all devoted many days to the wind tunnel testing. Other Engineers Without Borders volunteers that played an important role are Jerry Pugh, Matt McLean, and Ann Torres. Finally, none of this would have happened without the help of Jose Navarette, Nili Gold, and Farid (all of whom work at the NASA-Ames facility), the technicians running the tunnel, and the generous donation of the facility by the US Army Aeroflightdynamics Directorate (which leases the tunnel from NASA).

To see more images of our wind tunnel tests, check out our Wind Tunnel album and watch the video below: