After deliberating with Salma, we decided to shift the focus of our project to developing a solar dryer.  Salma mentioned that he would be interested in one so his produce does not go bad immediately and would last longer. (IE: Preventing post-harvest losses see photo to the right)  We think this is a good opportunity to help increase the quality of life and importantly the income of Salma and his Demo Farm; after reading Lauren Wilcox's Designing New Technologies for a Better Life, we learned that technologies should most importantly enable their owner to increase their income and that increasing income is what alleviates poverty sustainably.

We believe that a well-designed solar dryer could have numerous positive effects on the Demo Farm to help it develop sustainably by ensuring produce doesn't go bad as quickly:

• • Food grown at the Demo Farm does not go bad as quickly, so it can be consumed and the resources it took to grow it are not wasted

  • Demo Farm produces more food than it can sell

  • Opportunity to grow more produce at the Demo Farm

  • Farther reach of sellable produce

  • Opportunity to grow more different types of produce and diversify the diets of people at the Demo Farm 

We started our draft designs for the solar dryer during the shop period of Week 4 (4/22), which we received feedback on during our presentation that week.  Our original design was inspired by many existing solar dryers, including:

Written resources: 

• https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/solar-dryer#:~:text=A%20solar%20dryer%20works%20on,warm%2C%20which%20dehydrates%20the%20substance.

• https://energypedia.info/wiki/Solar_Drying

Video resources

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0f0jew8Whw

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2mHaTbpNr0

As we have moved through the design process, we have adjusted our design to better reflect both our/Salma's goals, parameters, and material availability.  The ultimate goal for the project is to provide quality documentation of our project to Salma so he can develop a dryer himself and the ability to recommend a successful and accessible heat trap.