Kids and Their Science

I may be preempting the Acumen Fund here, but I wanted to pass along this very cool invention from a team of homeschooled kids from New Jersey. They've invented a treadmill-like sorghum and millet thresher for the world's poorest.

Typically, it would take a person (usually a woman) 3-4 hours to thresh the family's daily sorghum or millet consumption.  This extended labor can actually cost the food preparer more calories than she gains from consuming the food. The machine reduces the amount of time spent on threshing to about an hour, saving expended energy.

The kids say this machine can be made for around $100 USD, all from materials that can be found locally. Obviously, $100 USD is a lot for most of the people who will benefit from this, but the team of kids are looking for investors to bring the machine to production. If you have a pile of money around, or know someone who does, let them know.

Thanks to Tom for passing this along to me.