Elephant Droppings, Halwa and Latex
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The Final Pitch: Ideabag
The final presentations were preceded by a poster session where the 8 teams had set up their demo models and pitched their ideas to the passersby. This was team Ideabag’s “booth”.
We used colored sand to demonstrate the gravity based mixing process that the team had designed. Apart from sand not playing well with gaps in the acrylic model, the mix that resulted at the other end was pretty uniformly mixed.
The results are promising, and with further engineering, we believe that we will be able to design and build a full scale prototype to be implemented at Vembanad Chemicals facility in Kottayam, Kerala.Here is a summary of the final presentation we made at Caltech on Monday, December 5th 2011.The problems as we identified them on our research trip:
From the owner’s perspective, his main concerns were1. Tools corrode very quickly, and we have to keep replacing them - this costs money.2. There is a market demand that I am not able to satisfy with the current process3. How do I scale?
From the workers’ perspective, their main concerns were1. Manually intensive process, they get tired quickly from all the carrying bags and shoveling2. Health issues - skin allergies and respiratory problems - because of all the particles that they breathe in (their mixing process is completely exposed, and all the shoveling drives a lot of particulates into the air)3. They are worried about losing their jobs to machines that will replace them.Based on this information and understanding the cultural and political context of Kerala, India, Ideabag went to work on the design. These are some of our brainstorming efforts:Systems level design:
Component Level Design:
Based on feedback from the customer (Vembanad Chemicals) and the E/ME105 class, we ended up with two final designs - The gravity mixer was chosen as the more promising with a cheaper initial cost and we created a prototype to prove the concept.
The team is really keen on taking the design further to a stage where it can be implemented at the customer’s factory and tested. Here’s what we think the next steps are:
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Fertilizer Mixing Facility
Vembanad Chemicals in Kottayam Industrial sector manufactures upto 36 tons of fertilizer everyday. They use manual labour to mix the raw materials and then bag the finished mixture. Loading and unloading onto trucks is also done by the same workers. The mixing process is a manual process using 2 shovels that erode because of the chemical content of the raw materials. Ventilation is a problem as well with all the particulates being suspended during the mixing process.
Materials:
There are 5-6 basic raw materials that come in 50kg bags including Potash, Urea, Bone Dust etc. These bags are brought in by laborers carrying them on their heads.
Process:
1. Bags are emptied onto the floor in a specific order over the same pile in this pre mixing process.
2. 20 bags are emptied onto the floor. Each bag = 50kg. Therefore total output in every round is 1 ton. 36 such rounds are done daily.
3. Some of the raw material is required to be sieved. The sieve is corroded from the chemicals in the raw materials.
4. Mixing is done in two steps. The mixture is separated into two piles for the first round of mixing and then collected back together into a single pile in the second round.
5. The fertilizer is then bagged and weighed.
6. An electric sewing machine is used to seal the bags.
Key Takeaways:
- Workers suffer from respiratory and skin diseases because of the raw materials. They are paid well though - Rs. 500 - 1500 per day based on output.
- Storage of materials is an issue. The stacking sometimes collapses and injures people.
- Material transport seems to be emerging as a common theme.
