Activities
Of GIAN
GIAN Field visit to Kharaghoda District: Surendranagar
to address problems faced by Salt Farmers
GIAN Summer School 2019
Organized by: Gujarat Grassroots Innovations Augmentation Network (GIAN)
Supported by: National Innovation Foundation, India
Mahua Seed Processing
By: KeyurUndaviya, UtsavMalam, KeyurKanjareeya&PallavMaru
Introduction
Mahua seeds are used to extract oil, which is primarily used for cooking purposes and the wastage is generally used as manure. Flowers of Mahua are used to make alcohol which also helps improve blood circulation. People either had to travel really far to get the oil extracted or use a traditional method which involved crushing the seeds by placing it in between the two wooden sticks. Three people are needed for this process. One to boil the Mahua seeds, second to crush the seeds by using torsional force and third to collect oil. The amount of oil that is extracted is directly proportional to the amount of energy applied along with how ripe the seed is. Riper the seed, more oil can be produced. This method involves a lot of energy and some oil is wasted since the wooden sticks absorb the oil. They might even break in cases where a lot of force is applied.
In the oil mills, they use high HP motors and maintenance costs are high since the load is high. The pulp that is generated after the oil has been extracted have to be manually removed when the machine is still on, which is a serious health hazard. During the team’s field visits, they found that the life of a mahua plant is 200-300 years, onset of flowers’ happen after 6-8 years of sowing. From 1 kg of seeds, 400-450 gm of oil is extracted on an average. For 15 kg of seeds, 15min are required for the extraction to be complete. Oil cannot be extracted efficiently from the seeds and the wastage is sold to farmers as manure for Rs. 2-4 per kg.
Primary Beneficiaries
Villagers of tribal areas who can use old method to making oil can get benefit by prototype.
Chosen Problem Areas
Simple device to squeezing powder which works as speedy process & production is more compare to old method they used.
Concept of Design, Assembling of Prototype
After seeing & do practically the process, we can decide the prototype for squeezing the powder & the oil is taken out from it. The local villagers can use it easily. This device is mostly made up with wood and in middle the lead screw is of stainless steel. So by rotating the upper male portion of the wood block, it come down and squeeze the bag of steamed powder of Mahua.
To Design Mahua Nut Splitter for Decreasing the Drudgery & Eliminating Injuries of Tribal Women for Oil Extraction from Mahua Seed Kernels
By: Pritish Pandya, Dhyey Pandya, BhavikModha&VikasMeghnathi
Introduction
Ediblemahua flower is a kind of lifeline in many tribal forested areas. A lot of food dishes are made besides using it syrup for medicinal purposes. It is also used for brewing though use of such drinks except for health purpose has to be discouraged. Its nutritive value is immense. Similarly, the inside part of the ripened mahua fruit is edible and its seeds are used for oil production, a substitute for costlier cooking oil in many tribal families.
For production of mahua oil, the general protocol followed by the tribals is: First, the seed is removed by simply pressing the ripened fruit. Then, the brown, hard and shiny seed is cracked by manual hammering, which is an inefficient and unsafe process. The kernel is cracked by peeling off the brownish shell. Finally, the kernel is dried under sunlight and ground in a machine or contraption available locally. Nut cracking was the most important and immediate problem to be addressed first.
Primary Beneficiaries
Villagers of tribal areas who can use old method to crack the kernels of mahua nut for oil extraction.
Chosen Problem Areas
In the tribal village, people can crack the nuts with stones by hands. So in that, they have faces many problems like hand injuries, low production rate and more processing time. So GIAN summer school students start to develop mahua nut splitter which can able to reduce the drudgeryof tribal women.
Concept of Design, Assembling of Prototype
In this nut splitter, they had do many kind of research and they also experience of this problem which the villagers are pershing. So they had make single hole nut sizing device. In this device, the nut can put on the top edge and after press with the two hands and the nut can break with two parts and it also become easy and time saving and also they can’t have any chance of hand injuries.
Brine Water DetectionDevice
By: ShivaniLal, MeenaKokare, SakshiThappa, NehaGumal, KetanJailkar&OmshreeDalvi
Introduction
The brine water detection technique is like to detect underground water. This problem statement was given to us, in that there is a detecting the brine water which is under the ground for the farmers who are doing the farming of salt known as Agariyas in their local words, for that we had many visits to the field like the village of the farmers and the place where they do salt farming. After visiting the respective places and meeting with locals we had come to know about their problems what they faced while doing the salt farming, the major problem was to detect the underground brine water.
Primary Beneficiaries
Farmers (In Salt Farm & also Agriculture Field)
Concept of Design, Assembling of Prototype
The most cost effective solution to detect the ground water is by passing the current through the area and noting the time taken by the current to complete the circuit. The ground, even consisting of a huge concentration of salt would offer a large amount of resistance to the current.
The presence of salt water or brine solution facilitates easy conductivity of the current, resulting in much lesser resistance offered and much less time taken.
The goal is LOW RESISTANCE TO GROUND. Ground resistance depends on grounding electrode selection, soil resistivity, soil contact, and other factors. The 62% Method (aka Simplified Fall of Potential Test) is one way you can measure the ground resistance at your site.
Fundamentals
Resistivity is fundamentally related to Ohm's Law measuring Resistance. Resistance is defined as the voltage divided by the current (R = V/I) and the value of a material's resistance depends on the resistivity of that material.
Resistivity is the value of resisting power of a certain material to the flow of a moving current.
Resistivity (ρ) values are related by the equation describing current refraction.
This law acts opposite that of Snell's Law in that the current traveling from a layer of lower resistivity to a layer of higher resistivity would travel at a smaller refraction angle.
Configuration and Electrode Spacing
The basic setup for a resistivity survey involves using a resistivity meter and four electrodes.
The resistivity meter is a device that acts as both a voltmeter (measuring V) and an ammeter (measuring I) and records resistance values (V/I).
These resistance values are converted to apparent resistivity values using the formula:
Where,ρa = apparent resistivity and k = geometric factor. The geometric factor varies based on the geometry of each electrode spacing setup in typical field work, data is acquired as an apparent resistivity value and later interpreted to obtain true resistivity.
|
