Vigyan Ashram, Pabal, India Open House Demonstration
Following projects were at display on this table.
1)Milk Sensor : Its a proximatory sensor developed using Hello3. We can use this to differentiate between the different quality of milk. It can also be very well used for counting objects in industrial application.the demo shows if you bring any object closer to the electrodes then it changes the signal on the computers. It gives different graphs for different materials.

2)Electrode / antenna using vinyl cutting machine : Demo of vinyl cutting m/c was also displayed on this area. We can cut copper flexible roll to cut circuits , which can be pasted on any insulated surface. A suface mounted component can be fixed on it. A demo of making electrode for milk sensor was on display.

3)LED bulb / Flash lights : This is a project done at Pabal lab. White bright LEDs are put together to make bulb and flash light. It will have useful application for villages. This bulbs consumes less power and hence when used on solar need smaller batteries and we can use more bulb on same battery.

4)Articles made on laser machine : Various objects made by Vigyan Ashram students are on display. Viz. Name plate, Momento, impresssion on foam sheet and leather, Gears etc. some Jwelery articles made by Vigyan Ashram girls students were also displayed.

This spring March 2005, the Vigyan Ashram Fablab was redeployed. Here is an assortment of images from the new labs and several projects student groups are working on.
Link to Pabal FabLab pictures; March 2005

Link to Vigyan Ashram's Website. Pretty impressive. It also has a local FabLab link.

A brief list of projects being explored at Vigyan Ashram FabLab
1. Diesel Engine timing devices
Diesel engines are the primary source of pumping underground water in drought prone regions in southern India. Thus they are widely used for several agricultural machines. Re-assembly of an engine requires the power stroke to match perfectly with the ignition cycle. Old engines do not have assembly marks which makes it very difficult to identify where the stroke occurs in a cycle. The project idea is to design a sensor attached to the fly wheel, which can determine the occurrence of a stroke by changes in the angular acceleration of the fly wheel, and thus giving hints for assembly for maximum fuel efficiency.

2. Electronic Milk characterization
Selling cattle milk to large dairies is a common livelihood in many villages. Milk from a section of a village is collected together and transported to the diary. If milk from even a single farmer is contaminated (bacterial, others.. ) it spoils the whole batch. Physical appearance is not a good indicator to determine wether the milk has an onset of bacterial contamination. The project is looking at electronically (capacitive measurements) measuring changes over a period of time to determine in advance if the milk has been contaminated and should not be consumed. The current approach being pursued is an impulse response measurement of milk samples over a given period of time to identify signatures which can distinguish between good and bad samples.

3. Refabricating photo-copy machine gears
Photocopy shops are a common site in rural and semi-urban India. These machines are imported and are so old that spare parts are not readily available. Wear and tear in the gears/mechanical parts causes breakdown of these machines. Students at Pabal designed customized gears for these machines, from the layout of broken gears and fabricated them on the laser cutter and the milling machine. The fabricated gears are a very good replacement for original gears and can be customized for various other machines.

4. Bamboo domes
Pabal has developed and deployed low-cost housing domes build from a steel structure and fero-cement. The structures are very popular and have undergone extensive testing in the field. For making light-weight/temporary structures bamboo is being looked as a raw material instead of steel. Snap fit joints avoid any elaborate onsite assembly. The project looks at what secondary structures (two-story domes, multi-room domes, other structures) that can be modeled and fabricated using similar approach as employed for single domes. Students will be prototyping these structures on the laser and working with 3D CAD softwares to automatically generate link lengths for these housing structures.

Manu 29 march 2005.

Here are some photos of the December 2002 visit to the FabLabs at Vigyan Ashram, IIT Kanpur, and the under construction Bithoor site.

You can also look at this smaller collection of the various places visited.

Delhi:
Delhi City Scenes
Delhi Red Fort
Delhi National Museum
Delhi Taj Ambassador Hotel

VigyanAshram, Pabal, Pune:
Pune City Scenes
Pabal City Scenes
Vigyan Ashram General
Vigyan Ashram Diesel Engine
Vigyan Ashram Tower Class

IITK, Kampur, Lucknow:
Kampur, IITK
Bithoor, Ganges

Agra:
Agra General
Taj Mahal
Agra Fort

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