The Bricoleur: Making Do

Claude Levi-Strauss used the term "Bricoleur", referring to a maker, of sorts, who makes do with the tools and materials at hand. Terry Frohm, principle technician at the CRRF Chuuk marine laboratory in Chuuk in the early 90s, used the term "Making Do" in reference to appurtenances and contrivances, innovations he cobbled together in creating a functioning laboratory, with a minimum of expensive and specialized equipment or hardware.

I recognized, in Levi-Strauss's descriptions of the Bricoleur, the Micronesian fishermen's use---of necessity---of available materials to solve their own technical problems: Marshallese fishermen used a piece of broken glass or a sharp piece of Aluminum beer can to clean a catch of fish on the beach; spears were fashioned of discarded heavy iron wire from water-tank bands, straightened and sharpened; their slings made from old airplane inner tubes. Goggles were carved from wood---using possibly a kitchen knife sharpened on a piece of pumice that had drifted onto the beach, their glass from a
relict World War II airplane. Gillette's study of Tuna fishing in Tokelau features a demonstration by a Tokelauan elder: trapping an air bubble in the hand cupped over one's eye to provide an air-water interface through which to see fish clearly.

This Blog cannot adequately honor the resourcefulness of those men, but I have borrowed the words of Terry Frohm, to describe the purpose of this proposed collection of solutions and innovations of various kinds. These solutions are embarassingly rich in their reliance on modern materials. The intention is to develop a repository of cheap and easy solutions to problems that are important to me. I I hope it can serve as more than a collection. Rather, by example, a reminder that solutions are often at arm's reach, and not in catalogs.


Monday, June 20, 2016

A Portable Pond Dipper

I needed a long handled dipper to get samples from Lake Temescal, in Oakland.  I have found a few Hydra on the duckweed (Lemna minor) I had scooped up with a ziploc bag a few months before.  But it was a clumsy arrangement at best.  I was looking for a dipper like we use for bathing in the tropics (dipping water from the 55 gallon drums we used to collect rain water, or from a well.  Along the way, it became apparent that long poled dippers are sold by Scientific Supply houses; man!  the costs were unbelievable!

Duct Tape.  A broken Tripod.  Some quart size Salsa containers.  That's all I needed.

Photos still to come.

I cut a leg from the tripod.  Now I have an extensible rod.  Taping the salsa container on, I have a portable pond dipper.  Portable, because of the telescoping rod.  Awesome!  Especially considering "respectable" pond dippers are sold in the scientific supply catalogs for upwards of 60.00.   I have often wondered about this.



Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)