Emmanual Alie Mansary who invented the Solar Powered Car visited BlueCrest College to share his Invention Journey. BlueCrest College Management is pleased to Grant Course Scholarship for Mr.Emmanuel Alie Mansary to study Certificate Computer Fundamentals Course at BlueCrest College Sierra Leone.
Imagine building a running car made from scraps and trash. That is what Emmanuel Alie Mansaray—a college student from Sierra Leone—did. Further Africa reported that the university student came up with the idea of building a solar-powered car made from trash and scraps he picked up over time. Further Africa also reported that the project took Mansaray three years to complete, but he now regularly drives the car around town.
Struggling to get money to pay his fees at the Fourah Bay College, self-taught Sierra Leonean inventor, and engineer, Emmanuel Alieu Mansaray has completed his journey to build Sierra Leone’s first solar-powered car, he named “The imagination Solar Car’. He collected most of what he used to build the solar-powered car from trash and saved LE 10,000,000 (US$1,000) for the past three years from the little money his family gave him for lunch because he could not get support from many people he met and shared the ideas with. He used the money to buy Solar, headlight, traffic light, horn, cable, switch, mirror, and pack-light to invent the solar-powered car. Coming from a poor background, he made friends with some people who worked at the scrapyards at Hastings and Upgun where he visited after lectures to beg for scraps and collected the rest from the trash bin. He wanted to find out how he could be part of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals focusing on ‘clean energy’ by inventing the solar-powered car like his ‘’imagination solar car’’ using solar-power for transportation that will make way for a cleaner atmosphere, thereby reducing the risk of dangerous gaseous emissions that have led to the death of thousands of people around the world.
Self Taught innovator Emmanuel Allieu Mansaray pictured at his house working
Emmanuel Alieu Mansaray is a 24-year-old self-taught Sierra Leonean inventor, engineer, renewable energy expert, and a student of the Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone, pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Geology. attained his high school certificate from the Methodist Boys High School, Freetown. He invented the first ‘solar-powered’ car made in Sierra Leone. His passion for the environment and to solve social issues affecting his community led him to invent the solar-powered car. He called the car “The imagination Solar Car’.
24-year-old Emmanuel Alieu Mansaray joined a few young African innovators from Ghana, Kenya, Botswana, and Nigeria that have invented a Solar Powered car.
Sources from Face to Face face Africa and Africa news.com
‘Imagination Solar Car’ is Sierra Leone’s first locally made solar-powered car built from trash. It’s an Eco-friendly car, which does not use any fossil fuel to power it. The body of the car is built with bamboo (cane stick). This car can cover a distance of 15km per hour on a tarred road.
The ‘Imagination Solar Car’ has a large solar panel at the top of it which powers the engine and also acts as its canopy. The car has a self-made engine which is different from all other cars with three gears attached to it for both back and front movement. It has a left and right traffic light, a horn, four headlights, and an accurate brake system. It has two doors and two mirrors attached to its left and right flanks. The Imagination car was built as a result of the knack to invent creative technology in solving social problems in his community and country as a whole. So, he decided to create the ‘Imagination Solar Car’ to reduce the risk of contracting incommunicable and respiratory diseases like lung cancer, asthma, etc. caused by inhaling hazardous fumes emitted by cars using other types of fuel (fossil, gaseous and liquid).
In 2018, the number of chronic lower respiratory diseases (including asthma) deaths in the world is 159,486 and respiratory diseases ranked the 4th Cause of death in the world. Source: National Vital Statistics System – Mortality Data (2018) via CDC WONDER.
Goal 7 of the Sustainable Development Goals talks about ‘Clean Energy’ and having a solar car like his ‘Imagination Car’ using solar power for transportation will make way for a cleaner atmosphere, thereby reducing the risk of dangerous gaseous emissions that have led to the death of thousands of people around the world.
solar-powered car is pollution-free, and it operates by converting sunlight into electrical energy using photovoltaic cells. Therefore, it does not produce harmful or hazardous emissions. Since solar energy is a renewable source, the sunlight that is used to power this car today will still be there tomorrow, and will continue to shine for years to come and so does the ‘Imagination Solar Car’.