Joint testing

for a multi-purpose connector, to speed up fabrication process for bamboo vaults similar to the bamboo workshop and smaller; as well as bamboo robots like the waterbot for Berekuso Hill Station.

Accra panorama from Jamestown lighthouse

Jamestown, Accra

Building Ghana's maker culture

#bcaccra breakout session

We're about to do a breakout session at Barcamp Accra on "Building Ghana's maker movement" @annawab @gamelmag @dkoa

More background, start here:
Maker Faire Africa: to be a maker is not a day job
Instructables: share what you make
MAKE Magazine: DIY projects
Makeshift Magazine: a journal of hidden creativity
Fab Lab: at Takoradi Technical Institute
D-Lab: Development through dialogue, design and dissemination
Makerbot: 3d printing

innovation_star

part process flipbook w/ @panurban

Dimensonal accuracy

If you remember high school science class, you remember the constraints of accuracy. Precision is much more profligate (case in point: UCBerkeley) than accuracy.

Sometimes, that can constitute up to 50% or more of miscommunication.

Lome to Cotonou

When I went to Maker Faire Africa, I wanted to better understand the Abidjan-Lagos corridor (part of the Trans–West African Coastal Highway which I had previously studied as part of the Tema research. Here are shots from the road via Togo and Benin. Having never before seen in-between Lome and Lagos, the scenic route was well worth it. Especially when set to Francophone radio soundtrack (try Africa No. 1 Lomé, Togo).

And here is World Bank perspective on ECOWAS highway infrastructure (2011):

Traffic along the key regional corridors is moderate to heavy in both cases; with the most heavily used routes typically those in poorest condition. The regional corridors almost always carry at least 300 vehicles per day along most of their length, and more than 1,000 vehicles per day on at least 20 percent of their length (table 2.2, figure 2.1b, figure 2.2b). Overall, the most heavily used corridors are the two gateways into Burkina Faso, and the Cotonou-to-Niamey route. Ironically, these are also some of the corridors in the worst physical condition. The Dakar-to-Bamako route is one of the most lightly used, perhaps reflecting the existence of a parallel rail corridor; although the Abidjan-to-Ouagadougou route is used intensively, despite the existence of the rail alternative. Otherwise, the portions of the corridors falling in the coastal countries tend to be the most heavily used, almost always attracting in excess of 1,000 vehicles per day. Nevertheless, in absolute terms, such traffic levels can be considered no more than moderate. After all, 300 vehicles per day is the minimum traffic threshold required for paving to be economically viable. And none of the corridors exceed the threshold of 10,000 vehicles per day needed for toll road concessions to be economically viable. 

The cost of moving goods along each of these key arteries is a key constituent of competitiveness for both international and intraregional trade. These costs break down into three components: the travel costs of moving goods, determined by road and rail freight tariffs; the administrative costs of moving goods across borders and through ports, determined by associated service charges; and the costs of time delays incurred by waiting at roadblocks, border crossings, and ports. The competitiveness of the different corridors can be gauged by aggregating transport, administrative, and waiting costs incurred along the route.

Abidjan-Lagos corridor

Quirky.com

This is an interesting idea: an upgraded version of crowdsourced product design. One part corporate design exploitation and lots of parts open-air design idea emporium. Makes sense once you factor in the retail partners:

Seems like designers in Ghana could easily do something similar, using social media and some of the larger distribution networks in retail.

Once plastic is involved, there are unlimited possibilities: