Mankind is full of ingenuity. These photos will explore the wonders of ingenuity where man, because of either necessity or creative thought, has come up with methods to imagine and design tools, machines or utilize other components to accomplish tasks or activities. Human ingenuity has no bounds. There could also be a link which is in green and it is an active link to a web site for more information about the image. Just click the link and another browser window will open.
Most Styrofoam will make its way to a recycle plant but there
are other ways this is used. This photo shows how the locals of one island take
the square pieces of Styrofoam, stack them together and then bind them with
split bamboo to make a simple water flotation craft. These are used by the
younger men of the island to go night fishing. They will wear a paddle glove on
their hands and depart in the evening and not return till the early morning
hours with their catch. Photo:
Koh Rong Samloem Island,
Cambodia
Another example of
ingenuity is shown here. Upon making a stop for food from a extremely grueling
bus ride in the mountains of one country we enter the very small wood and metal
building to eat. I noticed that they had electric lighting and after I finished
I walked outside only to discover there were no power lines. After looking
further I discover what you now see. The device has a high power jet of water
spinning a cupped wheel attached to a shaft which is attached to a generator.
The water source is from plastic tubing which begins at a waterfall high in the
mountains as a large diameter then it is reduced in size and this produces high
pressure at the end. Photo: Unknown mountain location in
Colombia.
This next image is
unusual for me to do but it was necessary to give a full and complete story and
description. I was visiting one city walking about and I came upon a river and
on the other side I see two men, one holding a strange looking object, what
appeared from the distance to be a weapon, maybe a rifle of some sort. Since I
am an inquisitive sort, I had to find out what he had so I cross over to the
other side and approach the man but of course the fact that I could not speak
the language was not a problem, I just used sign language and as he sat there I
was able to look at this device up close. What you see in the lower image is
his weapon. What was it for I wondered and as I am watching I finally
understood. These two men were fishing.
Having seen many ways of fishing around the world this was completely new and I wanted to understand more about this device as well as if the process they used actually
worked. In the upper part of the image you can see a short barbed spear which
is connected to a cord. This cord is connected to a set of rubber or elastic
bands and they are connected to the bow section which you can see in the prior
image. Now I needed to see about the line and in the lower part of this image
you will see a blue tube which is plastic tubing. Wound around this tube is the
fishing line and it goes up and back toward the barbed spear and is attached to
the spear at the end. Does this actually work I wondered? My question was
quickly answered as the other man fired his weapon and then I see him slowly pulling
the line in and firmly attached is a nice fish. The truly amazing part of this
is the fact that the river water was so brown, murky and cloudy I could not see
any fish and do not know how they could either. Photos: Chiang Rai, Thailand
Cultures of the world have been making bricks for thousands of years and there are a variety of methods used to make them. In certain parts of the world, one will find this method of brick making which involves constructing a large fire box which has an outer casing of hardened bricks and inside are the new clay bricks which need to be baked for many hours if not days to cure and harden the clay. Notice the bottom holes in the structure, it is inside each of these that the wood is contained and lighted to produce the needed heat. Photo: India
This image is of the same method only in a different country. Photo: Bagan, Myanmar (Burma)
This image seems simple enough, but it is more complicated than it appears. First it was taken in a country which has had the highest success rate when it comes to re-forestation. The country developed methods whereby (fully or partially) grown trees could be transplanted and survive the shock of being pulled out of the ground and planted in another location. What you see is one of the techniques used in this transplant process. They use a normal hospital IV drip bag which contains nutrients required to reduced the transplant shock and insert the feed needle into the tree thereby slowly infusing the tree with a mixture which will allow the transplanted tree to survive this shock. This image was photographed in a very large city, one of the largest cities in the world and is considered a mega-city. The government developed plans many years ago to implement re-forestation efforts through out the country as they realized that the reduction of the forests would do more damage if left unchecked and they have devoted billions of US dollars toward these efforts. Photo: Chongqing, China
