Study Abroad Peru 2013: May 7: Day 11 (Puno) Part 2

Here's an update on the progress made by the groups:

Reed Group: The team came armed with gas and prepared to show off their "reed whacker". After explaining the concept to several interested islanders, the team pulled out their assortment of blades (all round, but of varying surface areas and teeth sizes) and got on a boat to test against some real reeds. Then disaster struck. When the team tried to use the first blade under water the motor stuttered to a standstill. Concerned, but not deterred the team put on a smaller blade (less surface area = less drag). The following is a video of the test with the big blade.

While the blade would turn while under water, it moved extremely slow and failed to cut any of the reeds. Wanting to see how it was supposed to work the team showed several islanders, and gave them a turn, cutting the reeds above the water. This display was met with great applause. The following is a test with the little blade.

Returning to work the team scratched their heads as to how to get more power of their little motor and make the reed whacker work under water. (The islanders wanted it to work under water so that they could get reeds of sufficient length.) A few of the islanders with knowledge of motors (some of the people use motors to drive their boats between islands and to the mainland) and the team worked together and eventually decided that the motor had not been properly adjusted for high-altitude (I mentioned we were at ~13000 feet (4 km) right??) and something about too much oil in the petrol. (I have no idea about more details than that, at this point I was busy with another project and mechanical engineer does not equal motor expert.) At any rate the islanders concluded that idea a bust. At this point the team brought out plan B and proposed to have a mainlander weld a blade to a sleeve and put that on the end of a pole. Luckily Nelson had a welder friend on the main land who was happy to bend the end of a steel pipe and weld a knife blade to it

Oven Group: The team had a day full of folding ahead of them. Out of all of the teams the oven team got the most attention from the islanders, because they were all rather tired of having to buy bread from town. So the team split up and did their best to discuss the design and help all of the interested islanders build their own. Overall they had a lot of pleased reactions but there was still much clamoring for a test, to see if it actually worked or not.