Description of the Problem
One of the difficult tasks in preparing food for 450 childrens at the Byana Mary Hill orphanage was preparing the corn maze for Posho. The process of making the Ugandan native food called Posho is quite labor intensive. Posho, along with beans and water make of the majority of the children’s diet at this orphanage.
The orphanage can grow about half of their corn required for the children to eat. Once the corn is harvested, they let it dry out. Once the corn is dried out they remove the corn off of the cob with their hands. This is a very long and laborious process and the children were complaining about their hands bruising from trying to prepare all of the corn.
Solution
We found some students over at MIT that were attempting to make the process of removing the corn a lot easier. By attaching a device to a bicycle, they could use the power of the bicycle to remove the corn. They have started a company from their efforts called Global Cycle Solutions.
Here is a video of our results!
We were the very first customers of Global Cycle Solutions and the first edition that we ordered did not function properly, but they quickly sent us another one. We still ended up taking the corn husking device to a local mechanics shop to help it fit the bicycle we purchased. But we were happy to announce that the mechanics were able to get it working.
Follow Up
We thought there would be potential for some of the workers at the orphanage to try and make a small business from the bicycle corn husking by traveling to schools or places that prepare the corn for grinding and husking their corn for them with the bicycle. We will keep you posted on how the project is coming.