Whiz kid now turns to rainmaking

By Kenfrey Kiberenge

The country’s prolonged drought spells could soon pave way to showers if the dream of a 23-year-old whiz kid at the University of Nairobi becomes true.

And the answer is not consulting the goddess of rain and ancestors but dead electronics.

With the gadgets, Mr Pascal Katana hopes to kill two birds with one stone –– make rain and reduce electronic wastes that have become an eyesore due to poor waste management policy.

The engineering student hopes to produce the first artificial rainmaking gadget.

With this gadget, he says, the Kenyans could ‘beckon rain’ at will.

23-year-old whiz kid Pascal Katana

The fifth year electrical and electronic engineering student says once completed and adapted, the technology could transform North Eastern Province into a wetland.

There are already precedents in Mali , US, European countries, India, China and Mexico.

While Kenya was closing down Masinga dam due to low water levels, Thailand’s cloud-seeding operations got under way to fill up one of their dams.

How it is done

Operating in a tiny room in Mamlaka hostels at the university, Katana hopes to complete the gadget that will save he country from the ravages of drought.

"I would want to take it to North Eastern Province and attract the rain clouds," he says.

He says he is not reinventing the wheel, but only making use of the biological process of producing rain, but this time reinforced by principles of physics.

"From biochemistry, we know that the rain clouds produce negatively charged electrons which are attracted by positively charged electrons released by the trees. My gadget will therefore produce electrons similar to those of the trees," he says.

However, experts say more than just the electrons are needed to make rain.

Mr Alex Mutinda, the lead scientist at Ewell Research, an international research organisation based in Nairobi says: "Rain is not just over-saturated air out of which the water falls just like that. The process that leads to rain is complicated geochemistry. It can happen that you get 100 per cent humidity but still no rain."

He goes on to say: "When the temperature drops you only get over saturated air and fog, yet still no rain. And even if enough surface water is available, nothing happens. Only the evaporation stops."

When The Standard on Saturday visited his room, Katana was still at the initial stages of the project. "I will test it after every one month for the next three months and if it is successful then I can unveil it to Kenyans," he says.

In 2007, Altela, a New Mexico company, grabbed world headlines by unveiling a machine that the company said could make rain. The company’s Altela Rain System mimics the evaporation-condensation cycle that makes life on earth possible. The system takes bracken, salty water; boils it; creates steam; and the steam is cooled to become purified water.

Just like in nature, the water gets cleaned because the salts and other materials get separated during evaporation. While the company pumped in billions of shillings to develop the technology, Katana’s gadget will be developed using recycled materials from dead computers, radios, DVD players, and TVs, among others.

He obtains the parts from a junkyard in Ngara, Nairobi, for as low as Sh10. The student says other parts cost him up Sh400.

Katana started his inventions last year when he came up with a mobile phone controlled power management system. It is a preset system to regulate the use of solar power and car batteries, especially when the levels are dwindling.

Pascal Katana with his invented lamp mobile phone charger. [PHOTOS: ANN KAMONI/STANDARD]

"The owner must feed the gadget with information on the appliance’s priority. As the charge on the car battery diminishes, the gadget switches off appliances in order of priority," he says.

Once the final appliance is off, the mobile phone on the gadget immediately rings to attract the owner to look for an alternative if need be. That gadget, which ranked top at an internal exhibition organised by the university, cost Sh150. But Katana’s moment of fame was in April this year when he designed a "fish caller" system, which emerged tops at an exhibition organised by the National Council for Science and Technology (NCST).

"The system, also controlled through a mobile phone, produces sounds similar to those of fish when feeding. This attracts fish rushing for the ‘food’ only to be trapped. Once they surround the system, which costs Sh445, it calls the owner who will throw a net for a kill," Katana says.

Other inventions

This particular technology won admiration from judges and participants at the exhibition that it was selected as the only Africa’s representative at the ‘Smart-gear Inter-continental Exhibition held in Arusha, Tanzanian last month.

And in July this year, Katana teamed with a colleague, Mr Jeremiah Murimi, to come with a bicycle dynamo mobile phone charger. This helps the cyclists in rural areas with no or little electricity to charge their phones as they cycle.

Katana says this is the technology he would advance since there are many scrap materials at the Ngara junkyard which he could use to make millions of such chargers.

The young man from Kwale, Kilifi, has also made a charger that can use candle, firewood and lamp heat. It targets rural population without electricity.

 

 

Read all about: rainmaking Pascal Katana rain clouds Altela National Council for Science and Technology

 

 

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