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Ludovic, our Geek engineer, didn’t know what to do this morning. When a Geek is bored, he just wants to tinker with stuff. Ludovic loves the USB port of his computer because it’s universal and he can plug a lot of stuff into it. A scanner, a mouse, a cell phone even more if he uses his USB switch. Now, what can we do with an electroluminescent LED, a USB plug and Ludovic ? Maybe lights to illuminate his keyboard or to find his USB switch in his desk when there’s a power cut. Ludovic did a great job this morning and he’s going to build a couple of his new inventions for our Cybertigi centers and radio stations.

A popular homemade antenna design is one based on waveguide theory. A metal pipe is used to guide radio waves to an active element; one end of the pipe is open to the air, and it is this open end that is pointed to the source or destination. Typical designs are the cantenna designs, where an appropriately sized commercial can is pressed into service as an antenna.
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GCM’s objective was to create a low-cost method of connecting a PC to a wireless network, a method that would help us reduce the cost of connecting Malian computers to the Internet. Also, from a sustainable development perspective, we wanted to use materials that could be easily found or made in West Africa.

Our secondary objective was to document the construction of this apparatus so it can be easily replicated by others. The documentation is in French to make it as accessible as possible to francophone West Africa.

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Keeping it Cool

With the onset of the hot season, GCM needed to find a way to keep laptops from overheating, even in non-air-conditioned environments.

A simple yet effective solution was found: Read the rest of this entry »

Geekcorps volunteers’ ingenuity saves time and money.

The difficulty of getting high-tech supplies can be a source of frustration to Geekcorps, but, as in the case of the do-it-yourself antennas, sometimes it prods us to invention.
Most recently, volunteer Moussa Keita used a PVC tube to enclose a wireless access router so that it is weatherproof. This allows the router to be mounted 30 meters high on Radio Wassoulou’s tower (in Yanfolila).This DIY enclosure cost about $10. The alternative, a NEMA enclosure ordered from the US, would have cost about $250. See also: bottlenet.

Geekcorps Mali launched a project in mid-September to investigate the technical and business aspects of building small, low-cost antennas for the Malian television and WiFi (2.4 GHz) markets. Read the rest of this entry »