AjanleKoko:

More compact, hardly likely. The machines are meant to crush large volumes of pepper. There are smaller home grinders with smaller motors available, for home use. The ones in the market are meant to pulp-ify large volumes of pepper, crush sacks of elubo, maize, wheat, and so on.

Less ugly? well, I don't know which machine is a work of beauty, when you strip away the nice packaging/housing. Which by the way carries an additional cost, which isn't practical for Africa.

Smaller and equally effective is a pipe dream. Maybe in the new world when we have loss-less machines and superconductors. The machines you speak up are still governed by the same rules of physics: torque, torsion, speed, etc. Bigger core and more windings = physically bigger machine, as well as more powerful machine, in terms of kilowatts or horsepower. And such machines will typically consume more electrical power in order to generate a larger output in terms of mechanical power.

A good analogy is vehicles. While you have a lot of components that have been shrunk in the automobile engine, the engine block essentially remains the same. A 2.4l and a 3.8l engine can never be the same size.

I do see your point though. However, the machines were not even designed by engineers in the first place. More like technicians and artisans.
Maybe engineers should look at introducing some modern technology (feedback control systems, more electronics in the control as opposed to the mechanical valve that's used to control the grinding speed. But will the target market pay for the enhancements? We are still talking Africa oh.

perhaps the main reason why most people are pointing the fingers at engineers

If someone could design it, patent the design to be the sole manufacturer they'll recoup their investment in the long run, so many NGOs/politicians buy grinding machines all over Africa, the target market will see the benefit and cross over naturally

Hurray! i didnt get the usual thread killer: _{wetin u don design u wey dey talk}

Dis Guy:

perhaps the main reason why most people are pointing the fingers at engineers

If someone could design it, patent the design to be the sole manufacturer they'll recoup their investment in the long run, so many NGOs/politicians buy grinding machines all over Africa, the target market will see the benefit and cross over naturally

Hurray! i didnt get the usual thread killer: _{wetin u don design u wey dey talk}

You have a good point.
Now that you've mentioned it, I might just buy one of those machines and send it to my Chinese friends.

Civil service officers and Politicians.

Though not trying to hold brief for Nigerian engineers, most of the things that we are blaming engineers for are not really their fault.
Point 1
The selection and application of the right and appropriate technology in these sectors is the main problem. For every issue mentioned,eg. power generation, agriculture, roads, oil refinery etc, there exist already designed and tested technology in other countries, that we can implement here, and where factors abound that make such technology not directly applicable, R& would be done to develop the one that's appropriate for us.
To buttress my point further, countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait are not known to have highly rated engineers but we can see that they are far higher than Nigeria in these areas.

(2)

AjanleKoko:

You have a good point.
Now that you've mentioned it, I might just buy one of those machines and send it to my Chinese friends.

the question is do you have market for it, cos if you make it too complicated(with all this semi conductor and electronics, that you are mentioning), you might need school cert/OND holders as pepper grinding operators.

In descending order of disappointment to the entire nation (Nigeria) the 'foolowing':

1. Police (pathetic. your money is their friend)

2. Judiciary (they are adroits at sabotaging the course of justice & due process)

3. Engineering (Electrical being the worst of them all; NEPA being a perfect example, seconded by Civil; collapse buildings everywhere)

4. Lecturers (Research & Curriculum development is Zero. students buy grades. if you can pay n u are a female, pay in kind)

5. Politicians (visionless nitwits)


The 'following' aren't currently doing badly, however, there's so much room for development with better support.


1. Banking

2. Medicine

3. Prim/Sec school teachers (public schools excluded- many govt public schools are breeding places for tugs/social miscreants)

4. Agriculture (Govt funding needed)

5. Entertainment (growing, not badly)

The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved the procurement of two fast moving ferry boats to promote waterways transportation in the newly dredged river Niger for the sum of N623.5 million.

Briefing state house correspondents after the council meeting the minister of information Mister Labaran Maku said that this is in line with the palliatives being provided by the federal government to cushion the effect of subsidy removal on the citizens. The[b] forty five seater boats[/b] will boost economic activities and reduce pressure on other modes of transportation such as roads.

_{another import}

It's not rocket science is it, Engineers

Dis Guy:

_{another import}

It's not rocket science is it, Engineers 

You seriously think those guys asked any engineers?

There is a guy in Lagos, running a ferry service between Ikorodu and Victoria Island. He built the boats himself, in Nigeria.
You think the government asked him about their own boat service, and he said he couldn't do it?

So long as the government, who controls everything, does not want anybody who knows how to do stuff to do anything, we will continue to have this discussion.
And for the non-engineers, it wll be easy to blame engineers, because they don't know how to do anything anyway. Irony of life.

yea, the real irony in the Nigerian sense is the Engineers think they can do everything but don't actually do anything, well except blame everyone else

_{get in there}

Dis Guy:

yea, the real irony in the Nigerian sense is the Engineers think they can do everything but don't actually do anything, well except blame everyone else

_{get in there}

You must be one of the non-engineers

Anyway, seriously now . . . only a small fraction of Nigerian engineers work for the government.
The rest work either for themselves, or for the private sector. Those few bridges and roads, houses, private power installations, telecom, aviation, oil and gas,etc . . . na dem dey do am. Are you expecting Nigerian engineers to build a space shuttle? Talk to the ones working for government.

Even though i'm one of them computer scientist have really failed.well maybe except for seun