Project Overview
This June I will be traveling to Kumasi, Ghana to participate in research through RPI and their partnership with KNUST, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. I will be working on two different projects while there which I summarize in the proceeding paragraphs.
Ethnocomputing: Adinkra Symbols
The Asante people in Ghana use Adinkra symbols in their culture as a way of representing their history and beliefs. Each Adinkra symbol has a different meaning and these symbols are found in sculptures, architecture, and on cloths. There is much more that can be learned about Adinkra symbols, cloths, and their meanings at http://csdt.rpi.edu/african/adinkra/culture.html .
Developed from these symbols is a computer software, C-Snap, that allows us to reverse engineer these symbols and discover the algorithms that were used years and years ago to create them. Because we are combining the culture of the Asante people with STEM; science, technology, engineering, and mathematics; on a computer we call this teaching method Ethnocomputing.
The tool we use to teach teach these STEM principles is, as I mentioned before, C-Snap. You can access this tool at http://community.csdt.rpi.edu/applications/17 . This program has already been developed and improved upon a lot since it first was created. Through this tool there is much that can be taught to young people about geometry, graphing, and computer programming. While in Ghana I will be doing research on this tool, which is still in development. This will involve doing lesson plans centered around the software, collecting video screen captures of students using the tool, conducting interviews, taking field notes, and writing ethnography reports.
Solar Reflector
The Ink used to make Adinkra symbols on cloth is made through an extensive and unsustainable process. To produce the ink, natives use large quantities of firewood, where deforestation is already a problem in Northern Africa, Northern Ghana included, and the process also causes smoke pollution which makes it a painful process for the natives to endure. More can be learned about this process at http://csdt.rpi.edu/african/adinkra/ink.html .
Working with five Ghanaian engineers and another undergraduate student at RPI we are working to replace this process by using sustainable power instead. The Solar Reflector in use has undergone many iterations in the past by different groups. The reflector uses a parabolic frame with a forty-eight inch metal piece laminated with a reflective film on it. Located above the metal reflector at the focal point of the parabola is the heat chamber for the ink, this chamber is made out of evacuated glass.
At http://pdi-studio5.wp.rpi.edu/2013-2/ghana-outreach-solar-reflector/prototyping/ you can see where the most recent project group had left off. Since this group we have made several changes to the prototype to try and improve efficiency which must be replicated in Ghana.
Travel Update
The initial departure date for Kumasi, Ghana was on July 1st, 2014 but due to recent robberies the flight has been delayed one week. About a week ago two RPI graduate students staying at the Engineering Guest House at KNUST, the same facility the group I am traveling with will be staying at, were robbed by three armed men. The KNUST staff and administration is taking this incident very seriously and is now beefing up security; they are adding hourly police patrols, armed security guards and university transportation.
As a result of this incident participants are being given the option to back out of the program; I am choosing to continue with it. For now the flight has been delayed and will likely be rescheduled for July 8th.
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