November 07, 2004
"Screw the Kinkajou" Party A Success
This Fall, Design that Matters and World Education are launching a two-year pedagogical test of the Kinkajou Microfilm Projector in the adult language classrooms of 45 rural villages in Mali. To meet the start of teacher training in Mali on December 6th, we have to ship all 45 Kinkajou Projectors by Wednesday Nov 11th, next week! All of the parts have finally arrived, but the schedule has been very tight and DtM lead engineer Allen Armstrong has been working frantically to assembly the 45 Kinkajou projectors.
Volunteers to the rescue! This Sunday afternoon, we had a "Screw the Kinkajou" party at Allen's workshop to help with the mechanical assembly. The team made tremendous progress and saved our bacon!
DtM and the Kinkajou project are very grateful for the help of the following volunteers, who sacrificed a beautiful Fall afternoon to labor away in our dungeon sweatshop in Lexington: MIT MacArthur Genius and all-around Appropriate Technology Whiz Amy Smith, DtM Graphic Designer Tyler Kemp-Benedict and her husband, Master Screwdriver Operator Eric Kemp-Benedict, MIT ESD grad student Stephanie Dalquist and MIT 2.009 student Jenny Hu. Official DtM mascot Nikko made a brief appearance, to roll around in the wood shavings and investigate all the gadgets on the floor.
