Author Interview: Made in Africa: the affordable actimeter that can be built by scientists

The Actifield Project Team (from left to right) : Elikplim Ampofo, Mary Twumasi, Victor Kumbol

For Victor Kumbol, a HardwareX article also helps African scientists discover their own potential

Read Victor’s HardwareX article:

Congratulations on your recent paper. Can you tell us a bit about your background?

I had been doing some experiments in schizophrenia and depression in mice models. One type of equipment that we commonly use when we are screening is an actimeter, which is used to record how fast or slow mice move after they've been treated.

We had just one in the department at that time, and it was frustrating at times because we had to wait to get at it. But I had a bit of a background in electronics and Arduino as a hobby which I kept from high school.

I wondered how possible it would be to build one, because the principle behind the equipment is really simple. I stumbled upon a workshop which is organised by an NGO – “TReND in Africa”, which trains researchers in Africa to build their own lab equipment.

At the workshop, my teammates, Elikplim Ampofo, Mary Twumasi and I, built our own actimeter. I felt it would be really exciting to get the word out that it's really possible to build equipment, in Africa, for researchers in Africa.

What are the main differences between ‘Actifield’  your actimeter  and a commercial one?

Compared to commercial models available, this is really cheap, about 30 to 40 times less expensive, and the tools to build it are really easy to get.

It also offers opportunity for customisation. I'm trying to get other developers to help me to further customise it for other experiments because there's other data that we can get from this setup.

What made you start to think about publishing a hardware article?

It was actually at the workshop that I heard that it was possible to publish [hardware articles].

It was exciting because I really wanted to get the word out there that it's possible to do this in Africa and show people it's possible to build your own equipment here which you can validate and can put out into the world.

One of the main concerns with open hardware sometimes is the validity, and people are concerned about whether it really works, whether you can trust the data you get from it.

So, having a paper which has been peer reviewed and published makes it easy to convince a scientist or researcher to [think] “Okay, this might be worth it.”

Why did you choose HardwareX? How did you hear about it?

One of the things that made me go for HardwareX was that it was easy to navigate. The instructions and the templates made it very easy to shape the story.

The formula that was provided by the journal makes it easy to organise your thoughts and to organise the information that you have to put out there.

If you take any HardwareX article, it's easy for the reader to understand what the hardware is and how to build it. I felt that for readers of my papers it would also be the same; they would be able to quickly understand what it's about and how to build it for themselves.

Did you receive any feedback from publishing your work in HardwareX?

Yes, it first started with my institution, around the time the paper was published. I was interviewed by the university, and it motivated me – that it's possible to go further.

I won a grant from Mozilla to organise a local workshop similar to the one I attended. So, it's opened up many opportunities for me, and made me visible in the open hardware space.

What do you hope that this research will bring for the future?

Open hardware has become a game changer, especially for players with limited resources. I'm still very much interested in that area – not just developing hardware myself, but then empowering other scientists to also learn and build their own equipment.

I hope this article can encourage people especially from Ghana and Africa to know that it is actually possible to be able to build your own equipment. If they know that it's possible to publish their hardware, I think it'll motivate them to get involved.

Discover more HardwareX author interviews in the Author Interview pod on the HardwareX journal homepage, including:

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    Pete Marchetto’s device offers agronomists a quantifiable, repeatable way to measure if a plant could collapse during bad weather
  • The DIY autosampler robot that can save labs thousands
    Matheus C. Carvalho’s new autosampler built using easily available materials offers researchers a low-cost alternative
  • From a high school to the stratosphere – the weather balloon offering personalised atmospheric and flight data
    Aaron Price, winner of the ‘Explore Science’ contest, discusses his debut paper and his publishing experience in HardwareX