In Tanzania, catching dagaa is one of the main activities around Lake Victoria to earn a livelihood. However, the process of dagaa preservation was not entirely secure, which has led to issues of insufficient income and food waste. Therefore, Sagar Energy Solutions (SES) is developing a greenhouse dryer "Upepo" to prevent post-harvest loss and improve the quality.
There were some problems with Upepo needed to be addressed. Consequently, this project was launched to fix its current issue of sustainability, functionality, and business aspects. Besides these aspects, some unexplored topics were also investigated to broaden up the opportunities.
As a result, a greenhouse dryer, “UpWind,” was designed. UpWind not only ensures the production of dried dagaa but also aims to improve its performance on drying capability, cost-efficiency, ergonomic, and sustainability and to fulfill the stakeholders' requirements.
This project delivered the result by systematic design methods. The development followed the basic design framework of Double Diamond. First of all, in the Discover phase, research and analyses were done based on two topics, drying methods and other preservation methods. Then, the results were concluded and integrated into a Design Vision and a List of Requirements in the Define phase. Next, through performing creative design methods, such as Brainstorming, Morphological Chart, etc., and evaluation methods, eventually, one concept stood out from the crowd. Finally, the concept was developed through Design Iterations. The components were separated into three groups for easier development management. Depending on the attributes of the group, some were developed through simulation, while the others were through prototyping.
As a closure of the project, the List of Requirements, sustainability, and Technology Readiness Level of the final design were evaluated to ensure the goals of this project were met. Moreover, this project provided technical information for future development, such as the Bill of Material, production method, business model, and a design roadmap, at the end of the report.