28-03-22 | Kick-off session
[Also check out our padlet: CoP | Passive infrastructure]
Recording of the session: APC Videos
Notes taking CoP 1 kick-off meeting (March 28th 2022):
Presents: Subhrajit Dutta, Willy (La Difference, in The Democratic Republic of Congo, Bukavu), Henok (ET), Allan Marbaniang, Sol, Immaculate, Solomon (from Gulu Uganda, BOSCO CN), YZ
Sarbani
Nils: welcome and introduce
Bruna:
Mike:
Nico:
Mayak:
Allan: I’m supporting member for the bamboo tower, I’m here w professor Subhrajit Dutta
Henok: Hi everyone, I’m connecting from Addis, Ethiopia, we are trying to build the first CN in Ethipia, my first time joining the section, I’m happy to meet you guys.
Subhrajit Dutta: I’m an assistance professor… we are associated with the collaborative project of Bmboo towers rural area technology, along w Sarbani, look forward to this project.
Willy presentationchat: from La Difference, in The Democratic Republic of Congo, Bukavu
Mike: general ida of this CoPs is to bring people together with similar expertises, knowledge and needs, areas that need further develpoment and funding… In the past it was quite ad-hock and not collaborative approach, growing communities of practitioneers and grant makers, particlar networks, oportunities for fundings… in the spirit of it we came up with this 5 potential CoPs.
We are very much learning by doing and can refine the strategy as we go forward and are very interest in hearing your feedback on Passive Infrastructure…
Concept that comes form the … Sector… Late fyber equipment, supporting infrastructure that doens’t… (present 3 subtopics areas) → audio was breaking.
We don’t want to reinvent the whill, that’s why we want to help people get together and exchange knowledge around it. We would break out in 3 room but since we are few letś rethink.
Nils: open the floor about the 3 subtopis.
Henok: we are designing and talking to the regulator because it’s the forst project, it can be considered a pilot project, duscissing w APC, Carlos and Mike about the design. For me the solar power is where my interest is, because that’s where we are having challenges…
Mike: thanks for reminiding me about your project. What projects are on the go? What finish and we want to learn more from the go? APC has agreed to help support he solar energy component from the project and best to idenfi the best solkution and help … scale and grow. Worning to help to design bamboo mats, project also in Brazil with Coolab, pioneer project, we are not restritcted only to look to bamboo mats, other tipes of materials, valuable lessons about steel and other materials, wrk focused initially in India and help to support this project implementation… material selection and preservation… I’ve spoke to Willy they made work improving …
Invite people to do observations and comments so far:
Input from Sol: “Power and batteries, dimension, maintenance - common errors, best prac.”
Henok: we are starting from scretch, how many hours we need, I try to calculate the kind of inverters and solar panel sizes we need, locally solar panels are spensive, trying to contact suppliers of good wuality material for good price… we are trying to get help from Mike, we got quotation from Sudan, sharing with steering committee of the project to check if fits with the budget they have.
→ Good quality equipment not expensive and how to get it??
Professor Dutta: Idea to build bamboo towers for rural internet… coming out with robust design for those tower, structure part, stability of those structures, stable under the actions of weather, winds… technical side, …, sucefully grownded, e.g. India situation only, localized solution, we want to make our solution as much general as possible, lots of documentation on how to assemble those, material, specs, how to select bamboo… seazoning, threatning part also important, termites… how to make safer from those… we are focusing initially on the administrative size, recruiting people, coming uop with literature, bamboo specialist in india to give us training, structural design will come sooner to understand the material properties and we can build a pilot project.
Allan: best materials available, structure…
Nils: when will you be finishing the pilot? Other CNs want to see…
Sarbani: tower IT Bombai, project initiate and now start process of permission of authorities to set the towers, locality selected, begin process very soon… trying to understand about threatment and typed of bamboo… once workshop bamboo is done, we’ll move to the next stage! perhaps next meeting we will be able to give updated about the project we’ll have on the ground.
Date of the worskhop: first or second week of May
chat from sokotnono: Dear Henok, we need to talk more about sizing to cater for running effectively the site, things like hours of autonomy and others
Mike: solar calculator coolab beta phase (https://solar.coolab.org/)
…
ELektra Freifunk Berlin, co-designer mesh potato, working on low cost solar power unit, MPPT, the idea here is to have a small unit to control from a wireless interface in your phone… use other capabilities from the … charge cycle. has capabilities to use other exposed pins on the esp32 boards for connecting sensors for pollution or water. Hopefully we have elektra for a demo in another meeting and distribute some for testing.
Nils: some ideas on padlet. how to size solar panel deployments, we have very experienced community networks. maybe bosco as they indicated would like to share. the power tracker from elektra would be good to test it. we can imagine using this, for the deployment of sensors, running routers… use cases for these technologies.
We have not talked a lot about lightning protection. Willy couldn’t speak. someone else?
Willy: tecnology from PamojaNet DRC. last time i was talking about lightning protection with Mike. He suggested to join this meeting.
Last mast we installed. we used some materials from locality, bucavu…
This is the base for the lightning rod we use for the beginning. this is he base and this we made it locally here. at the top we make the lightning rods. As you can see, this is the lightning rod. this is the base. this cable needs to be joined with this bolt. here we are… the cable. We have just met … this part is for protecting the rest of the mast, this not to touch the mast we put something like a plastic pipe so it doesn’t touch directly with the mast. At this time when the lightning touches this pipe… I am attaching this plastic pipe to the top part of the mast. One part not to be touched.
…
(comments around images shared over screenshare)
*Mix charcoal with salt to ground the copper string
hole in the ground full with water. A part of the lightning rod is put inside the ground.
Mike: interesting technique haven’t said before. What thickness is the cable that runs down the mast?
Good to know that this kind of equipment needs to be place in the mast, extra kilograms and weight of the cable and lightning conductor, could influence design. Same solar panels and batteries in the masts. Interesting to see how these things connect with each other.
chat:
Henok (ET): what should be the thickness size of the cable?
Immaculate: Interesting and amazing technique. we would like to learn more and try to replicate at BOSCO
Willy: cable we are using a number cable, the length should be enough to run down the tower?
Mike: standard F cable (1/2 cm thick)
Nils: Other CNs working on lightning protection ColNodo Colombia and Kalungas in Brazil… could be interesting to share about different approaches.
Other challenges?
Sarbani: Nice if we also explain about what will be the role of these small groups of the CoPs, like for the Bamboo masts tower project, we’ve identified that we are going to do a tower in IITB, … their own location… how does the work in this place… together along with us. not only our knowledge but hiure’s for example. we had a meeting with him already. how to include others’ opinion into these community of practice.
Nils: How are we going to collaborate together?
Invite others to join the process… online workshops maybe, when there is something to share … maybe replicate.
There is budget for each of the 5 CoP, that we will collectively decide. We have 10k USD for the cocreation, materials, adoption, replication… not to buy ready-made technology… to localize, for others to replicate. Maybe some CN would like to replicate the ligtning protection from LeDifferance… to see materials, costs… would be good to hear from you what kind of ideas… how do you feel… what would you like to provide, what you are looking for.
CoP on how to setup solar, size it?
Henok: Solomon offered to help, this platform would be very valuable for us.
Nils: would be great to stay in touch with people we’ve met here.
We will share the recordings of today to understand what was discussed.
2nd half of april to be more concrete. WE’ve seen some challenges, proposals.
Next session what could be the … it is you who decide if you want to get involve… some might want to be in the driver seat, in the cocreation of CoP.
An emergent structure
What from LOCNET/WP4 is to share what was done and meet you again very soon.
opening for a final round of comments/proposals.
Bruna: Bamboo towers and masts. Hiure has a lot of development in that area. They have built this “machine” from a refrigerator’s engine to simultaneally fills the bamboo sticks with the products that make it impermeable and safe from bugs and other kind of dangers. I’ve also had the experience to implement a 13 meter mast in a CN I work with. We did in an artesanal way but it has been up for a couple of years. Worked with bamboo specialist. It’s better to use so called Giant bamboo. thickness of up to 40cm. better to use the biggest. easy to grow them. 7 year they reach 15-20 meters. it would be good if we created specific calls for the 3 sectors. Maybe an email thread to see how we could move forward as people wanted to participate and couldn’t join.
Nils: thanks. any others?
Sol asked if she can invite others. You can invite others.
Talking about communication.
chat:
Immaculate: This CoP is a great initiative that supports great sharing, learning and movement building of CNs. Thanks to the organisers
Mike: mailing list with the attendees of the session and invite others. Maybe start a Passive infrastructure topic in cn.group to share photos and resources.
Nils: thanks everyone!