Washing machine powered by human

Washing machines today are an indispensable device for families, making laundry work very simple. You only need to put dirty clothes in the machine and come back in 20 minutes and have clean clothes.

However, in many parts of the world where access to electricity and clean water has not yet been reached, people still spend hours washing their clothes manually. Two students Alex Cabunoc and Ji A You of Art Center College of Design, Los Angeles after witnessing women in Cerro Verde slums, Peru took all day to get water and wash their clothes by hand and thought of a prize. France. They created GiraDora , a cheap and highly portable foot pedal washer.

Cabunoc and You to Cerra Verde to participate in the Peruvian government's clean water project. The purpose of the trip is to help local people handle issues related to drinking water. Here, women have to go miles to collect water with buckets and carry them back to wash. This job can take up to 6 hours a day and they must do so 5 times a week, in all weather conditions and always use their hands to wash. Clothes take up to 3 weeks to dry in winter so they often get moldy.

People-use washing machines are not a new idea but the challenge here is how to make a cheap, easy-to-use and easy-to-use machine that makes clean and relatively dry clothes. After working with several models of dishwashers and salad mixers, the team created a washing machine that looks like a travel thermos.

GiraDora is a plastic tank large enough to sit on. The machine is designed to operate when the user sits up, keeping the machine balanced. Inside, there is a second tank like a regular washing machine, fixed by a central axis. This shaft connects to the pedal at the bottom of the tank. To use the user just put in dirty clothes, water, soap and cover the lid and sit on the foot bath continuously on the pedal. The machine works according to the vibration mechanism to dissolve dirt, clean clothes. When the clothes are clean, the tap on the bottom of the bottle will open and the user needs to pedal to push the water out. At this time, the washing machine will become a spinning machine, the inner cage will rotate and the clothes will become dry thanks to centrifugal force. Clothes are then fully dried for a short time. The cost of making the machine is only 40 USD about 800 thousand VND.

The benefit of GiraDora is not only to make laundry work simple. The machine has an independent and completely 'green' mechanism. Washing machines is not only more efficient than hand washing, saving time but also very convenient and reducing fatigue for users. All clothes can be washed at the same time, the machine is completely easy to carry near the water source and can be used even in bad weather. The drying function reduces the risk of mold and improves the health of families and communities. In addition, the machine provides opportunities for women to increase their income when they save time to do housework and receive rent for others.

Cabunoc and You introduced the device at several exhibitions and were awarded the NCIIA E-Team with a prize of $ 19,500 to support bringing the device to market. They hope to complete the trial phase in Peru within a year with the first 50 machines and will sell in South America in the next 3 years before bringing the machine to the Indian market. The goal of the two researchers is that there will be about 1 million people using this washing machine.

Reference: Gizmag