VOA慢速英语-Development Report - Simple Technologies with High A

This is the VOA Special English Development Report.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has educated many exceptional minds, including twenty-six Nobel Prize winners.
　
Participants in the 2008 International Development Design Summit

Recently an event took place at M.I.T. to try to think of exceptional ideas for simple, low-cost devices to help the developing world. Sixty people from more than twenty countries took part in the International Development Design Summit.

For a month this summer, they worked with volunteers from M.I.T., Olin College and a group of companies and other schools.

They were divided into ten teams. As the M.I.T. News Office reported, most of the people had never met before. Some spoke¹ no English. But each team had to invent a device to solve a different problem and build a working version.

One team designed a way for people to charge batteries while pumping water with a treadle pump. People would be producing electricity while doing their usual daily work. Farmers in many developing countries use treadle pumps to irrigate² their fields.

The energy stored in the batteries would be used to power electric lights at night.

Another team developed a system for making connecting blocks of earth to build walls and buildings. Some of the bricks were designed like the Lego blocks that children use.

Another device breaks up charcoal³ produced from burned corncobs. The carbon particles can then be pressed into small blocks and used as fuel for cooking. The M.I.T. report said this process would avoid the releases of dangerous carbon-monoxide gas produced when corncobs are burned whole.

One team redesigned a bicycle so it could be used to crush millet⁴, an important grain in Africa and Asia.

Another team designed a rope-and-pulley system to transport goods up a hill from a small village factory in India to a road. From there the goods could be loaded onto trucks.

And another team created a way to help babies born too early in villages far from hospitals. The team developed a simple incubator to keep them warm. The device is designed to be easily built and repaired with materials available locally.

The International Development Design Summit was the idea of Amy Smith. She teaches mechanical engineering at M.I.T. This was the second year of the conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Plans call for the third one to take place next year in Ghana.

And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by Jill Moss⁵. Our reports are online at voaspecialenglish.com.

 

1 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

2 irrigate   

vt.灌溉，修水利，冲洗伤口，使潮湿

参考例句：

• The farmer dug several trenches to irrigate the rice fields.这个农民挖了好几条沟以灌溉稻田。
• They have built canals to irrigate the desert.他们建造成水渠以灌溉沙漠。

3 charcoal   

n.炭，木炭，生物炭

参考例句：

• We need to get some more charcoal for the barbecue.我们烧烤需要更多的碳。
• Charcoal is used to filter water.木炭是用来过滤水的。

4 millet   

n.小米，谷子

参考例句：

• Millet is cultivated in the middle or lower reaches of the Yellow River.在黄河中下游地区，人们种植谷子。
• The high quality millet flour was obtained through wet milling.采用湿磨法获得了高品质的小米粉。

5 moss   

n.苔，藓，地衣

参考例句：

• Moss grows on a rock.苔藓生在石头上。
• He was found asleep on a pillow of leaves and moss.有人看见他枕着树叶和苔藓睡着了。