Presenting Our Thresher - June 25 2009

The entire team at our booth with the thresher. We had the booth set up for two days in a row, and provided information about our device.

Operating our thresher on-stage:

The presenters speaking about the design process:

The Final Product

First, one must feed the panicle of sorghum into the thresher:


The threshed sorghum and minimal plant material falls into a fluidized bed; the grating that lies underneath allows the seeds to fall into the chute, and the excess plant material to be buoyed up by the air from the fan:


All you have to do to thresh sorghum is some pedaling!

Photos of the Build Process - June 2009

Adrianna, working hard on the frame:


David welding:


Tyler and Kenny, working on the thresher:


Tyler and Bethany, working on the pulley:

Our Sorghum Thresher at EurekaFest - June 24-27 2009

After racing through a build season of only a scant few weeks, we arrived at MIT's EurekaFest with a fully-functioning, highly successful sorghum thresher on June 24th, 2009. We were chosen to present our project in front of an audience of three or four hundred people, and received ample press coverage, such as from Discovery and Whole Grains Council. (Click to read the articles.)

Our design consists of a threshing drum – an inner and outer cylinder with spikes, with an annular space between – and a winnowing fan, which fluidized the bed of grain after it is threshed off of the stems and branches, or panicle. Both of these components are powered by pedaling a bicycle wheel.


More photos to come, including videos of our presentation/demonstration and from the event itself.