By Monika Goforth | Guatemala Programs Director
I thought you'd be curious about the process of building our first hand-powered amaranth machine!
I've translated the official report from our Engineer in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. He's responsible for building our first prototype for the Guatemalan context. Last Monday, I met with Mujeres Oxlajuj E to go over the progress of the design-build. We set the official field test date for this Monday the 19th!
You'll be hearing more from me more as we get this machine started!!
Here's the engineer's report:
The amaranth winnower is a machine to separate the chaff from the grain of amaranth. The winnower is used after the threshing or shelling process, in which the entire grain is removed from the Amaranth head. After threshing, the grain husks are mixed with the remains, and hand separation is a very intensive process. This machine is designed to facilitate the process of separating husk after threshing manually.
The winnower is being built based on a design made by a group of students from Calvin College in 2015 and used in different parts of the world for the past 10 years. It is a manual and portable machine that can be the placed where processing is performed normally at harvest. The original design is seen in Figures 1 and 2.
This design was made in the United States and sent to projects in Africa for use. The goal of ATC has been to adapt this design that can be manufactured in Guatemala. This has required some structural changes and other changes of components; however, the operation will be same. The modified design shown in Figure 3.
The progress so far:
1. Completing the design for manufacturing winnowing Quetzaltenango. 1 to 26 September 20152. Perform manufacturing drawings for spare wheel. September 28 to October 3, 20153. Delivery of fabrication drawings to shop. October 3, 20154. Conducting manufacturing drawings for spare smithy. September 28 to October 3, 20155. Purchase of materials for manufacture of blacksmithing. October 1, 20156. Manufacture of parts at the workshop. October 12, 20157. Production of details in blacksmith shop. October 13, 20158. Receive materials ordered from Guatemala City. October 10, 20159. Assemble the first prototype. October 15, 2015The main steps to complete the project are:
5. Testing of first prototype in the field. Estimated completion: October 17 to 20, 2015.
6. Changes in the workshop with user feedback. Estimated completion: October 30, 2015
7. Delivery and final testing machine: 2 to 7 November 2015
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