Highland Coo Power?
OLPC India's cow power plant
Our approach was to not look from a motor/dynamo etc. point of view. Our approach was to develop power solutions around locally available mechanisms.
At the village (pilot site near Mumbai) OLPC explored the ideas of using solar power (in Mumbai sunlight is not consistently strong) , running water (we couldn't find any local water bodies nearby), wind power (no wind in the that area), mounting small dynamos on bicycles (we found out that in that area bicycles aren't that common at all, esp in that village) ....but the village had an abundance of cattle - that were being used in the fields.
So OLPC decided to design something around that.
The Cow Power Dynamo, built from old Fiat parts and a few belts and pulleys, is an amazing example of local innovation!
