Machine could produce clean clothes and local jobs
In places where electricity is scarce and you don’t want to spend your day by the river doing laundry, how about settling for the Bicilavadora pedal powered washing machine instead? Taking four years worth of development so far by an MIT team, the Bicilavadora is composed of an oil drum and bicycle running gear for its main components. As for the machine’s outer housing, the standard oil drum is cut apart and welded back together for a shorter barrel in order to allow even puny humans to pedal it, so that mom and dad can have a little quality time together while the kids learn to help with the housework. We guess it will use rainwater to rinse the clothes inside and at the same time could be built locally and thereby create jobs.
The Bicilavadora, combining the Spanish words for bicycle and washing machine -- got its most rigorous workout last month when a team of MIT students took the latest prototype to an orphanage in the slums called Ventanilla outside Lima, Peru. With 670 resident children, the home generates enough laundry to keep the washer perpetually busy.
This is another example of how simple creative ideas can certainly help make lives better esp. in developing countries. This is designing like you give a damn! Get inspired people and start with your own communities instead of roaming the shopping malls for the next collection of D&G, Channel, etc. and moving from one Starbucks cafe to the other...
Check this YouTube video out
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