Over the fall of 2013 I learned about charcoal made from agricultural waste, its benefits and how to improve the production of it in Uganda. With four other students and a researcher we communicated with groups in Uganda and prototyped models of various tools to assist in their production process. Over the month of January we all travelled to Uganda to see current production methods first hand and to implement new methods and improvements to old methods while working with the Ugandans. We designed and built many things including a solar dryer, a greenhouse, a gutter system, new kilns, a briquette molder and more. While there we also tested many combinations of various fuels and stoves to test the emissions and determine a preferred combination based on health and environmental factors. In the spring of 2014 I continued on with this project and pulled together the data we took while in Uganda and began to prepare it to be able to use it in a journal article.
