Comment on A Urine Powered Generator, Ag Hacks, and Arduino at Maker Faire Africa 2012 by Oakley Sunglasses

Erik Hersman (@whiteafrican, TED fellow and blogger) took some great photos at Maker Faire Africa, some of which we posted last week.

Hersman’s slideshow covers the whole event and includes the gorgeous shot of the four teen girls and their smart urine powered generator that has been making the rounds on the internet.

This is the fourth Maker Faire Africa. This year the event took place in Lagos, Nigeria; 2011 was Cairo, Egypt; 2010 in Nairobi, Kenya; and the founding year 2009 in Accra, Ghana.

In 2012 there were almost 60 Maker Faires around the world, all sharing the same passion and showing the same respect for the innovation, resourcefulness and creativity of makers—no matter where they live.

Learn more about how you can bring Maker Faire to your community here.

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Comment on Teardrop Camper Trailer by Oakley

Well, I am new on this, although I have built a couple of airplanes, worked on flight testing as a structures tech, and specialized on composites. I decided to use the "original composite," plywood (which happens to be the cheapest, too), to build a compact camper. It all started on a trip to lake McConaughy in Nebraska. We were lured by a friend who had a sailboat with the promise of a nice lake with sandy beaches, crystal clear water, and a nice camping site. Everything was true but the wind, the frogs, the huge biting flies, and a massive category-five thunderstorm that soaked us inside the tent. My wife said that she had had it with the tent and unless I found something else to camp in, she was out.

Enter the Internet. I needed something like a popup camper… hmm… search, search… wait, what was that? A teardrop camper… hmm, looks cool, a little small… I can make it a little different, for the three of us… I may be able to pull that with the car I have…

Here begins the story:

First, with my helpful neighbour (he is a veteran of Craigslist) I found a dilapidated popup camper. The thing towed nice, but (caveat emptor) when I removed the siding to inspect it, it just fell apart like a deck of cards. That made it easy; tear the whole thing apart and sell the metal to fund some of the new materials.

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