ATC Teaching Solar
Measuring Solar Panels
March 2012 we started teaching “Circuits and Solar”, a class for technical school students in Guatemala. A team of Engineering students from the US helped us sort out the materials and get everything ready. ATC member Michael Smith created the curriculum and Jose Ordonez and Carlos Alvarez in Guatemala translated the course into Spanish. We have had great feedback – the CECAP school in Santa Cruz la Laguna has already asked if we could teach the class again and we are starting to teach a revised version in Xela later this week.
Carlos Teaches "Circuits and Solar" in Guatemala
The Appropriate Technology Collaborative is proud to be able to support our Guatemalan team to teach this important technology. Our belief is that the most powerful way to improve opportunity for low income people is to increase local capacity to address their needs. In the above photo you see Guatemalans teaching Guatemalans about electricity and solar power. The class had two teachers sit in with the students so we have more people trained to teach. In just a few days two more teachers will learn the curriculum.
The class was so popular that there is now a waiting list for summer 2012!
Special Thanks to the IEEE Foundation and the Clif Bar Family Foundation for making this possible.
ATC Solar Lighting – The 100th Object
Solar Home Lighting System
It took curators four years put together the British Museum’s blockbuster exhibit “A History of the World in 100 Objects,” an attempt to tell the history of the world through objects pulled from the Museum’s huge collections. The result: a four hour BBC Radio show + book of the same name, soon to be published in the U.S.
Choosing the 100th object was difficult and long debated. In the end the curators chose a humble solar home lighting system for people who don’t have access to electricity. As many Appropriate Technology readers know we have been working on a home solar lighting system that can be assembled in the country where it is to be used. More on Solar Lighting – ATC Solar Lighting Link ATC Solar Lighting at: Style of Design
Looking Back on 2011
2011 was an unprecedented year for ATC. We re-designed our solar lighting system to replace kerosene lamps, designed new medical technologies, hosted 6 international design projects, helped farmers in Peru, brought water to a rural village, continued the design a woven wind turbine, purchased and shipped more solar panels than in all previous years; and much more. In 2012 we look forward to announcing our “City Lights” program – lights made from recycled cell phones and chargers. ATC City Lights addresses the problem people face in slum cities around the world. Many have power but only for a few hours per day. The City Light draws power when available and provides light when light is needed.
ATC = Empowerment by Design
Learning to Weave
ATC continues work on a woven wind turbine. Working hand-in-hand with our Guatemalan partners we are creating a new clean technology that will help women weavers earn more while bringing light to remote parts of Guatemala. While we reached our first goal of $5,000.00 from Global Giving, we still need additional funding to finish the prototypes and then follow up on this project for a period of five years. From our work and that of our partner NGOs in Latin America we find that if you don’t follow up, year after year, you may not accomplish your goals. ATC returns to the same villages, slums and cities year after year to insure our projects succeed.
ATC 2012
2011 was our busiest year yet but in 2012 we will double the number of people served by ATC technologies. We will have four World Challenge Design Teams in Guatemala spring and summer 2012. We will open opportunities for a new design teams and professional engineers and designers. Please contact us if you are interested.
Please check back to learn more about the student design teams and their projects. We will be updating the “Blog” portion of this site from the road as our projects evolve.
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