Resources

D-Lab produces a variety of publications about appropriate technologies and curricular materials that are available for free under a Creative Commons license on this website. Through its publications, D-Lab extends its impact beyond the classroom and MIT to other universities, multilateral institutions, community-based organizations, entrepreneurial ventures and individuals.

Technology Resources

Learn how to build and use D-Lab technologies! Whether you are working with a community that will greatly benefit from adopting these technologies, or you want to learn new building skills, or you want to set up a workshop to disseminate these innovations, here you will find all the materials that you will need:

Background Notes: Contextual information about the challenges being addressed, history of technology development, and project deployment status.
Build-It Modules: For students to learn basic shop skills while building a practical technology that can be disseminated in the field. Also comes in a version with teaching notes to provide more insight into the technology and guide the teacher/facilitator.
Do-It Modules: For making and disseminating D-Lab innovations. Uses minimal text and simple black & white drawings to facilitate translation, printing, distribution and implementation in the field. To help the documents last longer, we recommend laminating them or using sheet protectors.

Charcoal

These documents describe the tools and processes needed to make charcoal from agricultural waste, which provides a clean-burning, environmentally-friendly alternative to wood charcoal.

Files:

Background Notes

Charcoal Press Built-It

Charcoal Press Build-It (with Teaching Notes)

Charcoal Press Do-It

Charcoal Process Do-It

Corn Shellers

These documents describe the tools and processes for making a simple hand-held device for removing the dried kernels from an ear of corn. The corn sheller can be either casted in aluminum or made from a sheet of metal.

Files:

Background Notes

Cast Corn Sheller Buid-It

Sheet Metal Corn Sheller Build-It

Sheet Metal Corn Sheller Do-It

Corn Sheller Jig Do-It

These materials are provided under the Attribution-Non-Commercial 3.0 Creative Commons License. If you choose to reuse or repost the materials, you must give proper attribution to MIT, and you must include a copy of the non-commercial Creative Commons license, or a reasonable link to its url with every copy of the MIT materials or the derivative work you create from it. Please use the following citation format: [Name of Article] Copyright © Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Accessed on [insert date]).