Investigation

Criterion A (part 1)

In technology class, I started a project about the Ger Districts in Ulaanbaatar. The goal of the project is to choose one thing to improve the people’s lives. I want to learn how simple technology can affect the people who live in Ger Districts. There are 1,500,000 people in UB and 800,000 of them are living in Ger Districts. I went to the Bayanzurkh Ger District where about 7,200 people live. The majority of the people have hard lives. Most of the gers do not have running water and there are not enough public services nearby. Because they don’t have designated area to throw the trash away, there are many landfills in Ger District. In addition, the fences and gates are in poor condition. Most of the gates have been made with a variety of materials. People in the Ger District don’t have enough money to make nice gates, so they just use whatever materials are around them. Generally, the fences are built with wood, but this is expensive. There are about 10 well stations in Bayanzurkh Ger District which are supported by the government. The water is ground water which contains unhealthy materials. Water costs 1MNT per liter. People carry the water bottles, which are very heavy, or else push them on water carts. They use water to wash vegetables, to bathe, to do the dishes and to do everything else that needs water. To heat their ger, people use coal or wood. A bag of coal costs 1500MNT and wood costs 1200MNT. People build outhouses inside of their fences which cause land and water pollution. Though there are many problems in Ger Districts, some of them can be solved by simple technology.

I went to the ger district twice and at the second time I dig holes for poles which hold the gate and for the outhouse. We, the grade 9 student, couldn’t finish it. It was a hard job to finish in two hours. Some of the students carried water bottle and they said it was very heavy to lift it up. Though the water bottle is heavy, the people who live in the ger district have to carry the bottles every day. Also I saw the place where the community center will be built. There were some poles to hold the gates, but the gates were not there. The community center needs two gates, one was smaller than another which might be the gate of pedestrian, and another one was bigger which might be for the cars or huge objects. We visited the ger district with some teachers and guides, Mr. Chilton the humanity teacher, Mr. Wilson the technology teacher, Sukhee and Troy Tvrdik.

I noticed a few technologies in Ger District. People use the water cart to carry water easier. They built enough high fences to protect their privacy and land. Some of people built walls around their ger with sand bags to stop the wind. I saw some technologies, but almost all of them were in poor condition.

Criterion A (Part 2)

I chose the gate of the community center that will be built soon to design as the technology project. Although the gate is necessary to live in Ger District, the majority of the gates that I have seen were in terrible condition. Most of them are messed up. And it looked weak and dirty. Thus, I decided to design clean and strong gate.

There are two gates in the community center. The width of one of them is about 6m wide and another is 1m. The bigger gate will be designed as a sliding door with wheels to move easily. For the material of the gate, titanium is the best. It is light and hard, but it’s too expensive to be a gate of the fence of ger district. There are other materials that are suitable for gates, but most are too expensive for the people who live in ger. So, if someone supports them, the best material for gate is titanium. But titanium is too expensive to make a gate, so the material of gate should be iron. Most of the gates are made by iron it can be little bit heavy but it has wheels, so it won’t be broken. Though, iron is not very expensive, the people who live in gers can’t afford the price of iron. Therefore, no one supports them, the material of door must be wood, wood is not expensive and it’s not very weak and heavy. If the gate made by wood, it must be painted to prevent enfeeblement the gate. If wooden gate wets, it becomes weaken. But if it is painted, the paint will prevent weaken of the gate. The door which is located next to the gate must be painted wood. Wood is not so heavy and weak, therefore wooden door is the best door for the passengers’ door. And to hold the door there must be some hinges. The best material for the hinges is iron. Iron is strong enough to hold the wooden door, and it doesn’t cost very much.