词数 330 建议阅读时间 6 分钟 教案见网站 AMY Smith is an inventor and instructor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), US. She is not an easy person to track down (追踪). Even during the school year, she travels to remote African towns and Latin American villages. When she is on campus, Smith usually stays in her basement (地下室) laboratory. It is a workshop, known as D-Lab, with a long whiteboard and basic tools (工具). Unlike most of MIT, Smith's workshop is far from high-tech. There are no next-generation computers and no fancy (新奇的) equipment. There, D-Lab students discuss practical problems in the developing countries and then build solutions. Because the people they are trying to help are below the poverty line, the class's inventions must be simple, effective, and most important, inexpensive. "What people need is usually completely different from what we imagine sitting here in America," Jodie Wu told the Christian Science Monitor. Jodie is a mechanical engineering student. Her group went on a school trip to Tanzania over winter break. Her current project is a pedal-powered (踏板动力的) corn sheller (脱壳机). The idea came from a conversation with a Tanzanian bike mechanic (技工) . The D in D-Lab stands for three things – development, design, and dissemination (分发). Each is the theme of a different class. The first class travels to developing countries. They try to find problems that the lab can deal with during the next term. For example, in heavily deforested countries, the students found an alternative to firewood. The design class takes on the practical engineering. Here they planned and built a metal charcoal-briquette (煤球) maker. It can make clean-burning fuel out of agricultural waste. The third stage takes the students' work and uses it across the globe.D-Lab forces students to set aside their high-tech training. "Though it appears like a step backward in terms of technology, you are moving forward because you learn to do more with less," says Wu. ---------------------------------------BonusExperience a low-tech week1. Shut off your light for at least one night.2. Write a letter with a pen and mail it.3. Walk to your friend's house instead of calling. (Or tell us your ideas!)
