Innovation: Check.
Motivation: Check.
Solutions to problems: Of course!
These three primary school students are cutting time and effort out of an everyday job to make life easier for their community.
While the buzz of a lawnmower may be a normal part of any average neighbourhood weekend in the developed world, it’s also the sound of a convenience we often take for granted.
In Tanzania cutting the grass is back-breaking labour, something Grade 7 students Goodluck, Mikidadi and Boniface set their sights on to change.
“We tried to make something that will help in our community,” said Goodluck, whose co-inventors agreed that parents, or their loving kids, would find cutting grass easier with their simple electric lawnmower.
“(Without it) you would use a slasher. It’s very hard work.”
The hard work this innovative trio put into constructing their concept saw them take out third prize in our recent 6th annual Science Fair – the very first time a primary school group has won a spot in the top three!
“We worked on building it for two weeks, but the idea we had for a while before then,” Goodluck explained.
“We feel proud (to have won third place).”
Mr Mcharo, St Jude’s Head of Physical Science Department and Assistant Academic Master, was full of praise for the young inventors.
“Our students have been proving themselves nationally for the last six years but we’ve never had a group of primary school students invent something as impressive as this lawnmower,” Mr Mcharo said.
“We asked the students to come up with solutions for the problems in their communities. What they came up with is a great way to make labor less intensive, and I have confidence that they will integrate solar power in the years to come.”
Boniface, Mikidadi and Goodluck said construction was hard work, but their families were very pleased with them and it was something they were happy to have completed themselves.
They scavenged around for the parts they needed, from materials to build the outer shell, tyres and a fan blade, and asked for some wood glue to help their dream come together.
When the only blade, or fan, they could get ahold of was not made as sturdily as they had wanted, the team saw it simply as a challenge to overcome.
“So we added a switch to add the power. It goes from volume 1 to 3 power,” Boniface said.
“If the grasses are really hard, you would use (volume) 3,” Mikidadi added.
The award-winning team of 14-year-olds plan to continue working together on projects that they have brewing, but are yet to be made official.
“We are still working on ideas,” Goodluck said.
We can’t wait to see what they come up with next!
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