Junior Fellows take Control

I've mentioned Ben and Rory in previous post but I thought now would be the time (just before they head back to the UK) to introduce them to you!  This is Ben...

Ben on his birthday!

And this is Rory...

Rory demonstrates that he's learnt the TONIBUNG picture pose on the field visit!

And together they are the Engineers-Without-Borders (EWB) TONIBUNG Junior Fellows of 2016 -honestly formidable!

The team, getting ready for testing.

This year is the first time that EWB have launched this kind of fellowship projects so it's a developing model. The idea is that a group of UK students (Junior Fellows) take on a particular project for a partner organisation which they then visit and implement during their summer vacation. The Junior Fellows work alongside Senior Fellows - Senior Fellows help supervise the Junior Fellows' projects and continue to work with the partner organisation for a longer period as placement volunteers.

Our Junior Fellows this year, Ben and Rory are students at Strathclyde university which looks something like this...

Strathclyde University is in Glasgow, Scotland and is cold

...but in August they packed their bags full of insect repellent, sun-screen and electronic components and travelled out to Sabah where they have been working hard for the last month in conditions which look more like this...

Sabah is beautiful, hot and humid

The project which they are working on is to develop a prototype Electronic Load Controller (ELC). The ELC is designed to be used on TONIBUNG's micro-hydro systems.  Have a look at this blog post to get some of the basics on what micro-hydro and ELCs are.

The ELC design is based on low-cost electronics and an Arduino microcontroller. Stay 'tuned' to find out how the development is getting on!