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Pedal power

Engineers develop cycle-powered food device for the Third World.

Engineering students from Rowan University, in New Jersey, New York, have been developing a mechanical device that they hope can be used by people in developing countries to process food from corn to barley. This pedal-powered grain crusher could help with the generation of food, and perhaps income, for the Third World.

The team, comprising of Heather Klein and Josh Bonzella – civil engineering students at the Rowan Engineering Clinic, are working with Dr. Beena Sukumaran, a civil and environmental engineering professor, to develop the pedal-powered grain crusher.

Currently in the development stage, the team have built an aluminium grain crusher that attaches to a bicycle, which is mounted on a stand. As a rider pedals, the back wheel moves a contact element that turns a pulley that moves plates in the crusher to process the food from large to fine pieces suitable for cooking. Corn, lentils, split peas and barley — the grain crusher has worked on them all.

Self production

Dr Sukumaran hopes that the team come up with a workable design they can transfer to people in developing nations to produce themselves. “That’s why we didn’t want a very complicated design,” said Sukumaran, “We wanted to come up with some kind of mechanised device that does not depend on power.”

Bonzella added: “This bike could be any bike. We made the grain crusher so many different size tires and wheel configurations will work with it. Someone could ride this from village to village and then connect to the community grinder and basically perform this task.”

He noted variations of the grain crusher do exist, but they generally feature store-bought, hand-operated grinders that are very labour intensive.

Dr Sukumaran added that the team is working with Rowan’s Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship on a business plan and is considering patenting the device, which she estimates will cost under US$200.