6 ms·

Sri Lankan teenager builds solar-powered tuk-tuk from scraps [video]

168 points by tagawa 5y ago

tandav 5y ago
related guy https://www.youtube.com/c/npoddubnov/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/npoddubnov/videos
rukshn 5y ago
There are lot of teenagers and young inventors who can do great things in Sri Lanka However, the lack of a good startup ecosystem and education system not willing to support hem, they don’t make it beyond these articles.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  I was amazed by the story of William Kamkwamba. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kamkwamba https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kamkwamba Having been a couple of times outside of our cozy Europe in African and South American countries, I am always amazed how people make do with what they have. And in a similar note, how much they could actually have if instead war and exploitation, they were able to explore the countries resources.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    That's impressive. Building a wind turbine that generates usable power from scrap parts without access to a lot of documentation and a good workshop is pretty difficult. Love that tower too, it's so nicely made.
  - tcbawo 5y ago
    I watched the Netflix movie adaptation "The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind" with my children. It's a very inspiring story, and in some ways humbling to see someone needing to fight every step of the way for education, a better life, and survival.
wolfretcrap 5y ago
In India also they build solar vehicle, the students. Most of the material is Chinese, government imposes duties on these things and Indian students are not able to afford the raw material needed to build these as a result. Weird thing is indian government imposes duties on products that India doesn't even make.
- miohtama 5y ago
  As geopolitics, India does not want to become dependent on China.
  - oytis 5y ago
    Sure, but how you become independent if your tariffs hinder your own r&d? China seems to do it smarter by importing what needs to be imported until they can do it on their own
    - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
      It's certainly something that countries should have seen coming a long time ago and have a better plan than just tariffs once it's too late. Sometimes feels like China was the only societal model that didn't allow itself to be captured by fossil fuel interests from within their own or other countries and so could react correctly to this obvious development.
      - relativ575 5y ago
        China is being captured by the largest force of them all: the communist party. The party's influence has to be kept at all cost, even the economy. The current crackdown of tech companies -- Alibaba, crypto, e-tutoring -- shows that the party will not tolerate forces veering off their control. As for fossil fuel interest, China import oil, so that's the necessary evil, and they will be happy to get rid of it the moment they can.
        mcny 5y ago
andi999 5y ago
Having the solar cells on the side looks like a wrong design. But let's assume there is some on the roof. 1sqm of panel in Sri Lanka shd generate 150 Watts during clear day, according to one source you need 6.8kwh (which sounds too high for me) for 20km im urban area, 44hours of charging. 2sqm 22 hours.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  If the panels catch some light while it is moving it might make for a good assist, 150 watts extra is nothing to sneeze at with a pedal powered vehicle. When I'm cycling longer distances I can sustain 80-125 watts for 3 hours or so, which is definitely not athlete material but pretty decent for an old guy with a gimp leg ;) Going uphill that would make a huge difference (especially because a Tuk-Tuk is quite heavy), more so if you can store the power when you don't need it and dump it all in one go when you're going uphill, but then you'd need to have a battery in the system.
  - andi999 5y ago
    Is the device in the article pedal powered?
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      Hm, good point, I can't find any drive train components at all when playing the video frame-by-frame. Neither motor nor pedals & chain, unless he's using a hub motor in the front? Edit: just found this: https://electricalconnection.com.au/the-future-of-electric-vehicles-crossing-australia-in-a-solar-tuk-tuk/ https://electricalconnection.com.au/the-future-of-electric-v... Which makes me wonder how viable this particular reincarnation of the concept is. They have far more panels, have them facing up (which is good), have a much more efficient battery and still need a socket to charge up the battery because there isn't enough power from the panels. Edit2: I noticed all of the panels except for the 'door' have hinges at the top, I suspect they are placed horizontal for charging purposes. If not augmented by another power source then I suspect it has a very low duty cycle.
ZeroGravitas 5y ago
This seems like a market niche that is going to grow very rapidly as it passes a tipping point. I look forward to the repeat of hearing about Africans paying for things with their mobile phones and thinking, wow, that sounds like the future. But this time it will be low pollution urban areas near the equator where renewable powered electric transport is the rule, not the exception. How liquid is the market for second hand PV? If half a panel is damaged does it make economic sense to ship it to a poorer but sunnier location where it can be repurposed even if it doesn't meet the needs of the original owner? The second hand EV battery market seems fairly robust even at its current small size.
- Causality1 5y ago
  The future is now. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ilonalimonta-volkova/2020/12/07/mobile-money-in-africa/?sh=e76e5551158f https://www.forbes.com/sites/ilonalimonta-volkova/2020/12/07...
indiantinker 5y ago
That is so nice. May he have all the support he needs to build more things. Long time back, some of my friends and college mates built a solar car [1] that we took to Australia for world solar challenge 2011. It is a 3000km race across the continent. We were very happy to see the community around the solar cars is quite strong. The same has lead to companies like LightYear[2] working on extending range of EVs with solar. It was quite a struggle back then. Our LiFePo4 batteries got lost in shipping so we had to use 4 times heavier car gel batteries, our car had to be sawed in three sections a few days before the shipping, so we could ship in time, we got bad media coverage in Australia as we spent a few nights sleeping in the garage trying to join the sawed parts together (They kinda hinted we were poor and did not have a place to live, while we had a hostel but still had to work round the clock to make it in time as some people arrived late due to delays), and we often ran out of money as the university could only sponsor the car and not all our expenses. So, we lived on credit. When we came back, we heard foul things from people who thought we stole their funding, I had low attendance in the courses and was about to be flunked. I cried to the administration to let me sit for the exams. But we stuck together as a team. I am happy that we did it. I learned a lot. I guess, projects like these should be encouraged. Even though the car we made was not a great one compared to the western fordian ideals of efficiency and speed, but we felt that India (and other developing countries) need representation and visibility in this domain. We built a car with whatever we had and hey! it still runs robustly. It is a bit slow, but hey! Australia is soo beautiful, we gotta take our time. We did make it to finish line without any major repairs. The cost of our entire car was equivalent to the cost of the spare motor used by one of the top teams. I always think, there are other ways of looking at things than efficiency and speed, like initiative, frugality and the spirit of creation. There are often less stories on the second side. This story is one of them. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjHEYckl8xI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjHEYckl8xI [2] https://lightyear.one/ https://lightyear.one/
- teitoklien 5y ago
  Really cool project :D Even better to see it on independence day :D
- oefnak 5y ago
  The video footage of the journey could use some stabilization.
yoda97 5y ago
Kids building clocks and tuk-tuks while I still struggle to center that div.
- glenneroo 5y ago
  Relatedly, just imagine if the entire world's population could enjoy the privileges most of us HNers generally take for granted. Access to free (higher) education, internet, higher paid/skilled job market, cheap hardware, et al. I would guess at minimum a ten-fold increase globally of engineers, IT-experts, scientists, etc. who could contribute their knowledge and skills, thereby potentially benefiting everyone on Earth.
jacquesm 5y ago
To give some ideas of the power requirements here, a TukTuk is quite a bit heavier than a bicycle+rider, I did a 150Km trip yesterday on an e-bike, consuming about 1200 Wh of battery power and supplying the reminder the old fashioned way (using the pedals :), typically the balance is about 2/3rds pedal power and 1/3rd motor unless going uphill. 1200 Wh would require a surface of about 4 square meters of panels for an hour in direct sunlight. Let's multiply that by three or so for this TukTuk on account of the weight difference and much larger frontal area as well as the much wider 3 wheels and you can get an idea of how much duty cycle you can get out of this setup. This could be improved by adding a wall socket charger but then it isn't really solar powered anymore, at best it would be solar augmented. Useful calculator for bicycle power consumption: https://www.tribology-abc.com/calculators/cycling.htm https://www.tribology-abc.com/calculators/cycling.htm

168 points by tagawa 5y ago

related guy https://www.youtube.com/c/npoddubnov/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/npoddubnov/videos

There are lot of teenagers and young inventors who can do great things in Sri Lanka However, the lack of a good startup ecosystem and education system not willing to support hem, they don’t make it beyond these articles.

pjmlp 5y ago
I was amazed by the story of William Kamkwamba. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kamkwamba https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kamkwamba Having been a couple of times outside of our cozy Europe in African and South American countries, I am always amazed how people make do with what they have. And in a similar note, how much they could actually have if instead war and exploitation, they were able to explore the countries resources.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  That's impressive. Building a wind turbine that generates usable power from scrap parts without access to a lot of documentation and a good workshop is pretty difficult. Love that tower too, it's so nicely made.
- tcbawo 5y ago
  I watched the Netflix movie adaptation "The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind" with my children. It's a very inspiring story, and in some ways humbling to see someone needing to fight every step of the way for education, a better life, and survival.

wolfretcrap 5y ago

In India also they build solar vehicle, the students. Most of the material is Chinese, government imposes duties on these things and Indian students are not able to afford the raw material needed to build these as a result. Weird thing is indian government imposes duties on products that India doesn't even make.

miohtama 5y ago
As geopolitics, India does not want to become dependent on China.
- oytis 5y ago
  Sure, but how you become independent if your tariffs hinder your own r&d? China seems to do it smarter by importing what needs to be imported until they can do it on their own
  - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
    It's certainly something that countries should have seen coming a long time ago and have a better plan than just tariffs once it's too late. Sometimes feels like China was the only societal model that didn't allow itself to be captured by fossil fuel interests from within their own or other countries and so could react correctly to this obvious development.
    - relativ575 5y ago
      China is being captured by the largest force of them all: the communist party. The party's influence has to be kept at all cost, even the economy. The current crackdown of tech companies -- Alibaba, crypto, e-tutoring -- shows that the party will not tolerate forces veering off their control. As for fossil fuel interest, China import oil, so that's the necessary evil, and they will be happy to get rid of it the moment they can.
      - mcny 5y ago

andi999 5y ago

Having the solar cells on the side looks like a wrong design. But let's assume there is some on the roof. 1sqm of panel in Sri Lanka shd generate 150 Watts during clear day, according to one source you need 6.8kwh (which sounds too high for me) for 20km im urban area, 44hours of charging. 2sqm 22 hours.

jacquesm 5y ago
If the panels catch some light while it is moving it might make for a good assist, 150 watts extra is nothing to sneeze at with a pedal powered vehicle. When I'm cycling longer distances I can sustain 80-125 watts for 3 hours or so, which is definitely not athlete material but pretty decent for an old guy with a gimp leg ;) Going uphill that would make a huge difference (especially because a Tuk-Tuk is quite heavy), more so if you can store the power when you don't need it and dump it all in one go when you're going uphill, but then you'd need to have a battery in the system.
- andi999 5y ago
  Is the device in the article pedal powered?
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Hm, good point, I can't find any drive train components at all when playing the video frame-by-frame. Neither motor nor pedals & chain, unless he's using a hub motor in the front? Edit: just found this: https://electricalconnection.com.au/the-future-of-electric-vehicles-crossing-australia-in-a-solar-tuk-tuk/ https://electricalconnection.com.au/the-future-of-electric-v... Which makes me wonder how viable this particular reincarnation of the concept is. They have far more panels, have them facing up (which is good), have a much more efficient battery and still need a socket to charge up the battery because there isn't enough power from the panels. Edit2: I noticed all of the panels except for the 'door' have hinges at the top, I suspect they are placed horizontal for charging purposes. If not augmented by another power source then I suspect it has a very low duty cycle.

ZeroGravitas 5y ago

This seems like a market niche that is going to grow very rapidly as it passes a tipping point. I look forward to the repeat of hearing about Africans paying for things with their mobile phones and thinking, wow, that sounds like the future. But this time it will be low pollution urban areas near the equator where renewable powered electric transport is the rule, not the exception. How liquid is the market for second hand PV? If half a panel is damaged does it make economic sense to ship it to a poorer but sunnier location where it can be repurposed even if it doesn't meet the needs of the original owner? The second hand EV battery market seems fairly robust even at its current small size.

Causality1 5y ago
The future is now. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ilonalimonta-volkova/2020/12/07/mobile-money-in-africa/?sh=e76e5551158f https://www.forbes.com/sites/ilonalimonta-volkova/2020/12/07...

indiantinker 5y ago

That is so nice. May he have all the support he needs to build more things. Long time back, some of my friends and college mates built a solar car [1] that we took to Australia for world solar challenge 2011. It is a 3000km race across the continent. We were very happy to see the community around the solar cars is quite strong. The same has lead to companies like LightYear[2] working on extending range of EVs with solar. It was quite a struggle back then. Our LiFePo4 batteries got lost in shipping so we had to use 4 times heavier car gel batteries, our car had to be sawed in three sections a few days before the shipping, so we could ship in time, we got bad media coverage in Australia as we spent a few nights sleeping in the garage trying to join the sawed parts together (They kinda hinted we were poor and did not have a place to live, while we had a hostel but still had to work round the clock to make it in time as some people arrived late due to delays), and we often ran out of money as the university could only sponsor the car and not all our expenses. So, we lived on credit. When we came back, we heard foul things from people who thought we stole their funding, I had low attendance in the courses and was about to be flunked. I cried to the administration to let me sit for the exams. But we stuck together as a team. I am happy that we did it. I learned a lot. I guess, projects like these should be encouraged. Even though the car we made was not a great one compared to the western fordian ideals of efficiency and speed, but we felt that India (and other developing countries) need representation and visibility in this domain. We built a car with whatever we had and hey! it still runs robustly. It is a bit slow, but hey! Australia is soo beautiful, we gotta take our time. We did make it to finish line without any major repairs. The cost of our entire car was equivalent to the cost of the spare motor used by one of the top teams. I always think, there are other ways of looking at things than efficiency and speed, like initiative, frugality and the spirit of creation. There are often less stories on the second side. This story is one of them. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjHEYckl8xI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjHEYckl8xI [2] https://lightyear.one/ https://lightyear.one/

teitoklien 5y ago
Really cool project :D Even better to see it on independence day :D
oefnak 5y ago
The video footage of the journey could use some stabilization.

yoda97 5y ago

Kids building clocks and tuk-tuks while I still struggle to center that div.

glenneroo 5y ago
Relatedly, just imagine if the entire world's population could enjoy the privileges most of us HNers generally take for granted. Access to free (higher) education, internet, higher paid/skilled job market, cheap hardware, et al. I would guess at minimum a ten-fold increase globally of engineers, IT-experts, scientists, etc. who could contribute their knowledge and skills, thereby potentially benefiting everyone on Earth.

jacquesm 5y ago

To give some ideas of the power requirements here, a TukTuk is quite a bit heavier than a bicycle+rider, I did a 150Km trip yesterday on an e-bike, consuming about 1200 Wh of battery power and supplying the reminder the old fashioned way (using the pedals :), typically the balance is about 2/3rds pedal power and 1/3rd motor unless going uphill. 1200 Wh would require a surface of about 4 square meters of panels for an hour in direct sunlight. Let's multiply that by three or so for this TukTuk on account of the weight difference and much larger frontal area as well as the much wider 3 wheels and you can get an idea of how much duty cycle you can get out of this setup. This could be improved by adding a wall socket charger but then it isn't really solar powered anymore, at best it would be solar augmented. Useful calculator for bicycle power consumption: https://www.tribology-abc.com/calculators/cycling.htm https://www.tribology-abc.com/calculators/cycling.htm