New Solar Powered LED Lamp

A new LED lamp is designed. It is brighter than the previous design. The new design incorporates 4 LEDs  and uses 2 AA metal hydride batteries. The solar panel has an output of 7.2 volts which is sufficient to charge the 2 AA cells.

 A solar charging indicator is provided to indicate the battery is charging.

Global Community Day 2011

On Saturday, 24 Sept 2011, an award-winning art installation created by an American artist, Barnaby Evans, "WaterFire" made its debut in Asia right in the heartlands of Singapore at Bedok Reservoir on Saturday night. The 2-day event was part of TP's Global Community Day, in conjunction with the National Parks Board's (NParks) Parks Festival which celebrates Singapore's diversity.

Also on display is a solar powered LED Artwork with interactive electrical power generated by 4 bicycles. This has attracted much attentions among young childrens who enjoyed the cycling and watching the LED lights moving according to their cycling speed.

Visit Omkoi for Community Projects

On 10 April 2011, a team of 2 lecturers and 9 students went to Northern Thailand to do overseas community project. This is the first time we have started a community project in this area. We spent altogether 10 days in Thailand, of which 7 days is in the karen rural villages.

During the trip, we went to the 1st village to install install solar powered LED lanterns at 7 houses which do not have lights at Mae Ramit. The altitude of the location is 1200m above seas-level.

We stayed there for 3 days in a local church. We also had our 3 meals daily cooked by the villagers.

We started to install the solar lanterns after we settle down.

At night we have cultural activities with the locals and their children. We also had a camp fire. The temperature at night is cold, about 13 degrees celcius.

Next we went to decorate a small library and add more English books to their collection at Phapudung (village 2). It was a day trip. The location is 980 m above sea level.

Lastly we travel to another village Dung Loi (village 3) to paint a newly completed children activity hall. We stayed there for 2 nights under the courtesy of the village chief. We had all 3 meals at the village chief house. We had some left over paint, so we painted the church.

  

 At night we had camp fire and celebrated with the locals, singing songs, has a performance, some entertament.

 

Finally, we have friends who have helped us to make our stay more pleasant in Omkoi. Our thanks to Pastor Puwasak, his wife and ACT worker, Jeffrey and Pastor Noh .  Also to the village chief at Dung Loi.

Visit Lombok, Indonesia

In February 2011, I visited Lombok, Indonesia, to recce for possible community projects for the local community; to meet with local staff to discuss scope of projects and make necessary arrangements to accomodation for future trips.

We visited Lebuan Pandan and viewed a demonstration farm plot which is experimenting drip irrigation farming.

Next, we visited  Rembitan where a Sasak couple who provides Batik making skills training for young people in an Art Gallery. We discussed possible projects such as building vats for dyeing and washing of batik and teaching of conversational English.

Finally we visited Senaru to discussed possible projects in surrounding villages including building of volleyball court, particiapting in a biogas project and accomodation at a traditional house.