Rawat has been experimenting with the earth here using different combinations of earth and mortar in order to find the right consistency. Ballou and Rawat took approximately 2-3 minutes to mix the three part combination of earth, mortar and water perfectly to produce one brick before our very eyes.
"I have ten blocks here and I am testing different compositions. First I tried 100% soil just to see if water and soil would be enough to make a good brick. Then I tried 10% mortar which just reinforces it for water endurance and temperature endurance."
"William Jewell College and Michael have been in relationship with Mission: Border Hope and they've been helping us serve the community in a variety of ways. The neat thing about Michael's study is he's coming down to develop this process, but he's going to leave this machine with us in order for us to have as a resource in our community. Our hopes are to build a home out of this material in order to better the quality of life for a needy family in our community," said Mr. Bruce Ballou of Mission: Border Hope.
An amazing process by an amazingly talented individual who along with Mission: Border Hope will continue to make a big difference in the lives of families in Eagle Pass and Maverick County.
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Physics Major Designs Brick Making Machine
- Monday, 20 July 2015 15:17
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A.D. Ibarra
-Eagle Pass
Michael Rawat, a Physics and Math major at Jewell College in Missouri, is joining efforts with the Border Hope Foundation to make a difference in the lives of an underprivileged family here in our community by building them a home with a unique and creative machine he has built through a grant from his school which makes bricks out of earth, water and mortar.
Rawat and Bruce Ballou of Mission Border Hope demonstrated the entire brick-making process to us on a cool Friday morning in Las Hacienditas behind a Lutheran Church on Eidson Road.
"We have a compressed block machine which we have constructed through a grant from William Jewell College in Missouri through their general grant program and what it does is it compresses earth with a little water and a bit of mortar into a block which is cheap and is used in third world countries as an alternative way to build houses."
"Yeah, a good example of Arg-É-Bam a city in Iran which was completely built with adobe which is slightly different to compressed earth, a more mud-like structure. Compressed earth blocks are more uniformed, they're actual blocks that you can build upon. Adobe is more fluid, more smooth."