It has been 18 days since we left Nairobi for South Africa, then returned to Kenya. In that time, we passed through 8 countries, 18 border posts, covered 9,000 kilometers and saw some of Africa’s amazing beauty and realized just how vast of a continent we live and work on.

Sunrise riding is beautiful

A BRCK Expedition is meant to be challenging, as well as provide a testing environment for the device, and of course to have fun as well – this was all of those things.

Philip fixes his broken throttle cable roadside, early morning in Tanzania

Our path to SA and back to KE

Through the BRCK, and partners like Inmarsat (with their iSavi device), we were able to stay connected on the road to the internet. We learned about the hassles of SIM buying, registering, activating, buying airtime and converting that to internet data in each country. On the motorcycles we stayed in conversation using Sena headsets, which meant we could warn each other of dangers, as well as have conversations on future products and features (of which there are many). Around campfires in the night we discussed our current challenges and ways we could make things better.

Inmarsat iSavi, BRCK, computer and solar panels

The team back home, as well as our families, tracked our progress and helped us remotely out of some problems. Whether that was trying to get the information on the gap needed on a 1983 BMW R65 spark plug, or finding a place for us to camp in the next couple hours when things got a bit dicey. Having the ability to communicate and people who anchor the expedition team were amazing luxuries to have.

We used a couple channels for public updates, including the BRCK Twitter and Instagram accounts, Open Explorer as our geographic diary of sorts, and of course the BRCK blog. However, on the trip north we also had a cool gift from the Inmarsat team of a satellite tracker for the vehicle.

The route back north to Kenya

A Few of the Best and Worst Experiences:

[BEST] Makuzi Beach Malawi – a beautiful, unexpected, and much welcomed oasis. We did amazingly well on our 500km that morning, so were there by lunch and had a whole afternoon to rest, fix things and have some fun before continuing.

Paul drives the underwater OpenROV

Matt catches this amazing sunrise in Lake Malawi

[BEST] Hospitality of Tech Communities in Africa – It was amazing to roll into Lusaka, Zambia and be welcomed by the BongoHive and find the same in Harare, Zimbabwe from HyperCube and the tech community there. Finding like-minded individuals who were wonderful hosts was just what we needed.

At HyperCube in Harare, Zimbabwe

[BEST] BRCK Working Everywhere – Having someone in the vehicle working to get the BRCK going with a new SIM in a new country, as it was attached to an amp and vehicular mounted antenna, meant that we could stay connected (almost always). Rolling up on the vehicle and watching my phone sync up with messages and updates was cool, even in traffic. Mostly, it was gratifying to see the tech we had built withstand the harshness of travel and terrain, and just work.

Kurt readies a BRCK with the Wilson signal booster

[WORST] Border Crossings – It’s a toss-up whether the Tunduma Border crossing from Tanzania into Zambia is worse than the Beit Bridge border crossing from South Africa into Zimbabwe. The first is a chaotic mess, and the second is a process nightmare. (Note: Crack-of-dawn is the best time to do both crossings)

Beit Bridge border process into Zimbabwe

[WORST] Speed bumps and Police in Tanzania – The speedbumps in every town slow you down, plus the number of police waiting to stop any vehicle. The worst are the ones with radar guns, as their only mission is revenue generation. It seems that all Tanzanian police are unsubtly looking for bribes all of the time.

A police officer in Tanzania not asking for a bribe

[WORST] SIM card frustrations in new countries – Kurt wrote about this in a past post, so won’t belabor it, but it was extremely annoying to have to figure out the obscure and opaque mysteries of getting a SIM card connecting to the internet in each country. One of my personal goals is to make this easier for other travelers in the future.

Before we left Nairobi, 2 weeks ago, I though that a 500km day on a motorcycle was a long time. Now I just ask, “well, what will we do in the afternoon then?”

BRCK truck top

Our setup of BRCK plus Amp plus Car antenna

We left Harare, where the Arensen’s had hosted us for two nights in their lovely home, for a bit of a long day. We were gambling that we could make it through the Zimbabwe-Mozambique border AND then the Mozambique-Malawi border in good enough time to get to a campsite by the end of the day. A quick breakfast of chai, coffee and pre-boiled eggs underneath a baobab tree saw us to the first border in good time.

The Douane border crossing is less busy than it’s Beit Bridge counterpart. Leaving Zimbabwe, the customs and immigration officials are efficient and helpful. Getting into Mozambique was equally problem-free, especially since we had all gone to get our visas already.

A rickety wooden bridge in Malawi

Philip, solving problems in Kenya, while on the road in Malawi

Kurt with Lobo in the vehicle

My Suzuki DR650

Now, Mozambique, this part of it anyway where you shoot across the Tete corridor towards Malawi, is a hot, dry and barren land. The only thing of any note is the nice bridge you cross over the Limpopo river passing through the city of Tete. Besides that, I’d suggest it’s not a place you want to spend any time.

Two interesting things happen as you run to the Malawi border. First, you realize that you cross back and forth between the two countries a couple times on the way. Second, when you pass through the Mozambique side of the border you’re still 5km from the Malawi border crossing. Strange… but, again border crossings are not about security, they’re about revenue generation.

The Mozambique customs officials had clearly never seen a Carnet de Passage (it’s like a passport for your vehicle), so they acted like it was something they couldn’t stamp. We were able to convince them that it was something normal, and that their colleague at the previous border had stamped it, so they could as well. Stamped and moving, we shot off for the campground, as we saw a storm rolling in.

It was at this time that our small team mascot, Lobo the Australian cattle dog puppy, decided to have an explosive experience inside of the vehicle. Many curses were heard as people sprayed themselves down, and cleaned out the dog’s carrier. Praying for a dry night, we took off a bit behind schedule, and still managed to roll into Bushman’s Baobabs (great place), and had a warm still night of sleep.

500km up Lake Malawi

Off early, as always, we were half-way to our destination by 9:30am and got to camp by just after noon. As an aside, I think the word “Malawi”, and the flag symbol, all are pointed at the meaning of “land of the bicycle”. We saw so many people on bicycles today, more than in any other country we’ve been to.

The bicycles of Malawi

Makuzi Beach area of Lake Malawi is beautiful, and having a full afternoon ahead of us was something we didn’t know quite what to do with. So, of course we broke out the drone and OpenROV to have some fun.

We got some shots.

The OpenROV set to try Lake Malawi

Philip getting ready with the drone

Lobo checking out a shell

Matt Schoenhold of Teague playing with the OpenROV

Philip managed to crash the drone into the lake, so we’re trying to see if we can resurrect it. (Update: we dried it out all night and now it’s working again. DJI makes an amazingly hardy device)

We had a grand idea of Paul driving the OpenROV underwater vehicle under a rock and taking a video of someone jumping into the water. We kind of did that, the problem was the cable was a bit short. The other problem was that it cut my toe with a blade as it came up directly underneath me. The good thing is that we had a lot of fun trying and leaned some of the limits of the vehicle.

There is now a beautiful, slow moonrise happening at 9pm, over Lake Malawi. We’re all well, fat and happy. The bikes and Land Rover have been behaving well. We’re set for our early AM departure as we have 750 kilometers and a border crossing to go through.

The BRCK and Gearbox tables at Maker Faire Africa in Johannesburg

We’ve been excited to show up at Maker Faire Africa (old site) in Johannesburg for quite a few months, so actually being there yesterday was a big deal for us. Especially as we had driven 4,400km to be here and it was our primary goal for the journey.

The BRCK table certainly drew our fair share of interest at Maker Faire Africa this year. While Maker Faires elsewhere often feature the likes of fire-breathing dragon statues and other impressive works of art, making in Africa has a slightly different tone. The Faire in Joburg had plenty of amazing artwork – not least of which was a 30-foot tall LED light sculpture made of CNC’ed plywood and steel that looked amazing as the sun went down – but it also featured a leveling device for brick layers to make high-quality masonry easier to achieve. There’s a strong enterprising spirit to many local makers, and lots of them were keen to learn BRCK’s story of starting a hardware company in Africa.

From questions about sourcing components, to finding access to tools, financing, and marketing expertise, makers from across the continent wanted to know BRCK’s story of taking a uniquely African innovation to commercializable product. We held a joint workshop with the Gearbox team on how to take a product design from idea to prototype to production, and showed lots of people how they could leverage their experience in the local market and knowledge of the local context to develop innovative new products that no one else in the world would be capable of making.

While this year’s MFA is a bit smaller than in years past, we were still in great company with people building drones, robots, DIY kids electronics kits, 3D printers and a guy who built his own art car and skinned it in denim. (The best coverage is found on HTXT.africa. There were these guys who had built a small remote-controlled hovercraft who kept sliding it around, as well as a whole space setup for people to 3D print and make their own things.

Prototyping to Manufacturing

MFA is a great event, if for no other reason than that it brings together the engineers and inventors in an area together. There’s a lot of learning and connections made, and then more things happen afterwards. The other thing that happens is that people who are inventing new things are found by media and business people who can help them.

Last year there wasn’t a Maker Faire Africa, so we at BRCK weren’t able to showcase our prototype-level devices. This year, we had one of the more polished items at the event.

There’s a lot that needs to happen between your first hacked together prototypes and a real production run of a new product. This is why I think providing an on-ramp to manufacturing is the obvious place to go next with Africa’s inventors. This is why we’re helping to build Gearbox in Nairobi. We need people, training and machines that can take guys with great ideas and early prototypes, and move them into becoming real businesses.

The foundation is a lot more hardware-based prototyping, whether that’s Fundibots in Uganda, MakerHut in Zambia is trying to foster a community around hardware, and there’s a lot of activity in robotics groups by engineering students in Kenya, South Africa, Egypt and Senegal much of it happening in their respective tech hubs.

[As an aside: read Bankole’s post on “Africa needs an Industrial Revolution“]

The next layer is what we need to plan for next. So, while we’re thinking of Gearbox in Kenya, there are others doing the same in South Africa (who has always had a great manufacturing base). What others are out there? Who else is creating a program, space and bringing together that city’s inventors and engineers to not just create prototypes, but take things to market?

Catching up on a few updates at once here, you can read about Day 2 of our trip here.

It’s 6am in Lusaka, Zambia as I write this. The last two days have been a blur as we covered over 1,700 kilometers from Dodoma to Lusaka in what can only be considered as marathon sessions from sunup to just after sundown. Fortunately, both Tanzania and Zambia have some of the best roads we’ve seen, and the motorcycles and car all behaved well with only one slow puncture the whole way. We took small breaks every 100-200km in order to rest and move around a bit, but we’re still quite sore and ready for this day to do no travel.

Parking lot mechanics in Dodoma, Tanzania

Mark, Juliana and Joel setting up the GoPro

A dawn stop on the way out of Dodoma to Iringa, Tanzania

Grabbing lunch somewhere in southern Tanzania

The border crossing from Tanzania into Zambia at Dunduma left a little something to be desired. What felt like it should have taken about 1.5 hours at most, ended up taking 3+ hours, which meant our last 50km into a campsite were done in the dark on the only section of bad road we’ve seen. People did warn us of this, so it wasn’t unexpected. However, the reason wasn’t because of long lines of trucks slowing us down, it was due to inefficiency in the process itself at both immigration and customs.

From here, our days get a little more sane, with a run down through Victoria Falls into Botswana and then finally Johannesburg. As an aside, it turns out that half-way between Nairobi and Jo’burg is almost exactly at a small town called Serenje, Zambia – 2,200km from each.

Time at Bongohive

We pushed so hard to get to Lusaka by now so that we would be here in time for the events at Bongohive, Lusaka’s tech hub, which were all scheduled for today.

1pm – Demo of BRCK (Philip Walton and Reg Orton of the BRCK team)
3pm – Meeting with Startups (Mark Kamauof the iHub UX Lab) – HCD, UX, DT
4:30pm – Meeting with Startups (Erik) – Investment readiness, experiences with Savannah Fund, getting into new markets etc
6pm – Keynote at Startup Weekend Lusaka (Erik and Juliana Rotich)

Lukongo Lindunda is the co-founder of the space, and we’ve known each other for years, since before they got it started back in 2011. I’ve been looking forward to seeing everyone here in the tech space for a while, and I’m interested in hearing what’s brewing in the startup scene.

Some of the startups that I’ve heard about from Zambia include:

• ShopZed.com
• Bantu Babel
• Venivi
• DotCom Zambia, BusTickets
• TeleDoctor
• SCND Genesis

If you’re part of the tech community in Zambia, I hope you can swing by, and we’re all looking forward to seeing you as well.

Lessons From the Trip

Since we’ve started this trip I’ve been thinking a lot about communications, as one would expect with a BRCK expedition, and especially mobile comms. We outfitted the truck with a omni-directional Poynting antenna on the front bumper, hooked up into the car, where we can also connect it to an amplifier if needed. As we drive down the road, we have a pretty good mobile WiFi hotspot, as long as we’re in range of a tower.

The mobile phone kiosk, a mainstay of rural Africa

The last few years have seen a number of countries implement a registration process to buy SIM cards (ostensibly this is for security though it’s not been proven to be useful for anything more than big brother activities by governments). Even buying a SIM card is then a process of identification (usually passport or drivers license), so you have to budget for that 30-60 minutes to get that done, since it’s usually filling out a form by hand.

Registering an MTN SIM card in Zambia

You then purchase credit for the SIM card and load it up – this is the easiest part.

Now you get into the “mystery meat” part of the process, which is how do you turn that airtime you just bought into internet credit? Each network in each country has a different way of doing this, some combination of USSD or SMS to get it going.

A couple things come to mind now when we look at the BRCK.

First, we need a terminal screen in the BRCK interface for us to do all of this from the device itself. Right now we find ourselves popping out the SIM card and using a phone (Mozilla’s 3-SIM phone is amazing for this purpose), and then inserting it back into the BRCK when done.

Second, there needs to be a database of this “airtime to internet data” information that we can all use. I’m not sure how best to get this going, but I know it would be immensely useful when you drop into a new country to have this at your fingertips.

We’re already working on the first issue, of USSD/SMS interface, but it’s complicated, so it’s taking longer than we’d like. This trip is about learning, and we’re already finding a lot of things to do better. Look for more posts on the BRCK blog from the others as well.

(By Erik)

I’m writing this blog post using my Mac, connected to a BRCK which is connected to a satellite internet connection using an Inmarsat iSavi device, somewhere about 100km from Arusha towards Dodoma. Inmarsat gave us this test device, a small unit, made for global travelers, so we could test out what worked and give them feedback on their tools. It also helps us figure out what connecting to the internet looks like when you’re beyond the edge of the mobile phone signal in Africa.

Here’s Reg, using his phone to do the same at our campground this evening:

Reg using the BRCK and iSavi in Tanzania

The Journey

We left at 5:30am from Nairobi to beat the traffic out of the city. With the beautiful new roads, we were at the Namanga border by 8am and cleared by 10am. Before you go on one of these trips, make it easy for yourself and get the following:

• Carnet de Passage for each vehicle (get this via AA)
• COMESA insurance (get via your insurance company, or buy at the border)
• International driver’s license (get via AA)
• Yellow fever card
• Passport

By noon we were in Arusha, and took a chance to see the cafe that Pete Owiti (of Pete’s Coffee in Nairobi) set up with some Tanzanians, called Africafe. If you ever find yourself in Arusha, this is the first place you should go. Great food, good coffee, right in the middle of everything.

Knowing we were only going about 100km more today, we set off around 1pm. We got to a roundabout, and I knew which direction the main road was, so even though Philip mentioned we should go right, I went left to the main road. 45 minutes later we realized my mistake when Philip checked his GPS and realized we were further away than we were supposed to be.

Lesson learned: always listen to your cofounders (especially the one with the GPS).

With many sighs, we turned around and went back to Arusha, where Reg had been smart enough to stay with the Land Rover when he realized we went the wrong way. We quickly split off in the correct direction, aiming to get to the camping spot by 4pm latest.

As we were sitting in traffic in Arusha, Joel says, “Erik, your bike is smoking.” I replied that it was likely just the car I was parked next to. Nope. Sure enough, I was leaking oil… For those of you who don’t ride motorcycles, this is the last thing you want to hear when on the front end of a 4,400km trip. I ride a 2007 Suzuki DR650 – they have some of the most bullet-proof engines, and are perfect for Africa’s roads.

Working on the DR650 in Arusha

Fortune smiled upon us, and we were pointed towards Arusha Art Limited, which turned out to be an amazing garage (the best I’ve ever seen in Africa). Their director, Hemal Sachdev helped us out by helping to troubleshoot what could be wrong, and even fabricating a high-pressure oil hose, with compression fittings on the spot. There was oil everywhere, so we washed it off and kept going.

Lesson learned: there are a lot of people willing to help you in your journey, especially if you ask nicely.

5 km down the road, I was still smoking… Thanks to Hemal’s help, we knew what the problem wasn’t. It was now that we chanced to notice that the problem seemed to be coming from the timing chain setting hole. We realized this could be filled by a normal M5 screw, so got trucking to the campground where we could let the engine cool down and screw it in.

Now, I sit here in Wild Palms Camp, some place we saw on the side of the road near the Tarangiri game reserve. For 10,000 Tanzania Shillings ($6) each, you get a patch of ground to put a tent, there is a banda with table/chairs, and there are even some showers and toilets. Not real camping, but definitely nice after a day on the bike!

(Republished from Erik’s blog)

Two days from now we begin a BRCK overland expedition to South Africa. Like any of our trips, it is meant to be fun and adventurous, while at the same time giving us the opportunity to stress test our product beyond the norm.

In the vein of our past expeditions to Turkana and the Nile, this one is on the edge. We’re taking 3 motorcycles and a Land Rover from Nairobi to Johannesburg in time for Maker Faire Africa on Dec 3-6.

As usual, we’ll have a couple guests, or “shotgun riders” as we call them:

On the way south: Juliana Rotich (Ushahidi, iHub, BRCK), and Mark Kamau (UX Lab lead at iHub).

On the way north: Aaron Marshall (CEO, founder of Over, Africa’s biggest selling IOS app), as well as Matt Schoenholz (head of the Kitchen Studio at Teague which focuses on prototyping and making).

You can keep up with us:

• On the BRCK blog (here), Twitter and Instagram
• On the WhiteAfrican blog, Twitter and Instagram

A Dash South

If you do the math, you’ll realize this is more of a mad dash south in time for the event, covering 4,400km in 9 days. Here’s what the route south looks like, from Kenya through Tanzania, Zambia, Botswana and into South Africa.

Nairobi to South Africa – southern leg

The journey north takes us through Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania and back to Kenya, which we’ll take a little slower.

The People We’ll See & Events We’re At

We do have plans for a day off along the way. We’ll be stopping to visit our friends in the Zambian tech community in Lusaka. The Bongohive has been kind enough to host us, and we’ll be hanging out there, doing BRCK demos for techies and businesses, and I’ll give the keynote that evening for the beginning of Lusaka’s Startup Weekend.

Since I’m a founding organizer for Maker Faire Africa, I’m excited to go back, and this time have a product of our own to show for it. Besides demoing the BRCK and sharing how to build a hardware business in Africa, we’re also going to have some fun hacking on the devices with whoever is around and wants to play with them. We’ll have a couple of our engineers on hand as well.

Gearbox, our new prototyping and making initiative in Kenya, is a supporter of this year’s MFA too, so I’ll be able to speak to that and will have one of the Gearbox team with us at the event.

On the way back North we’re stopping in Harare, Zimbabwe to meet up with the tech community there. We’ll largely spend our time around the Hypercube, though plans are underway to get together with members of multiple tech spaces.

Testing BRCKs and Electronics

There are a couple new things we’re testing on this trip, three of which I’m extremely excited about:

When you add a RaspberryPi, a hard drive and another 8 hours of battery to a BRCK, you get a BRCKpi Microserver

1. BRCKpi – this is our RaspberryPi + BRCK device – it’s an add-on to the BRCK (we call those MRTR, as in “bricks and mortar”). We launched it last month with Mozilla in London, and are targeting it primarily at schools and clinics in Africa. However, we know there are a lot of other use cases for it, and one of those will be as a media server for our images and video on this trip.

Real off-grid, portable internet in Africa.

1. Satcoms – we’ve been thinking a lot about how we can extend the BRCK beyond the edges of the network, so that it’s the one internet device that’s smart enough to pick the right connectivity type depending on what it can sniff around it. To that end, we’ve been having great conversations with Inmarsat and we’re testing out their newest product, the iSavi (not even on the market yet, first one in Africa). Internet speeds are comparable to cellular networks at up to 384 Kbps down, and 240 Kbps up. It’s much smaller and more portable than a BGAN, so we’re excited to pair it up with the BRCK, stress test it and see how it goes off-grid.

Some of the best antennas on the market, made in Africa

1. Antennas – We’ve tested some of Poynting’s antennas before, and they’re some of the best we’ve ever found. This time around we’re testing their mobile units, paired with amplifiers which we built into the vehicle, in order to see if we can create quick, deployable units at the edge of the grid. Of course, Poynting is a South African company too, and as one of our partners, we’re going looking forward to seeing them in-person for the first time in Johannesburg.

I’ve been a bit remiss in my updates to everyone about what’s going on within the BRCK house. In short, we’ve been sleeping few hours as we try to do a whole load of updates, fix bugs, add new features, and create an overall better experience. I asked Jeff, Wesley, Reg and Emmanuel to put together a list of the recent changes, which you can see below.

Design

• Push out new version of the quick start guide for better UX
• New shop design (Improved UI/UX)
• New expedition BRCK symbol

Front-End

• Adding admin UI features to help the BRCK support team
• Improving UX by tweaking the UI based on user feedback for both the Cloud and the Local dash
• Fixing UI bug issues on the Cloud and Local dash
• Cleaning up the blog design

Cloud and BRCK OS

• Improvements on the Cloud to BRCK communications. This relieves some load from the BRCK when it receives communications from the Cloud. This mainly affects the changing of Preference settings. This is more of an efficiency fix that a bug fix.
• Fixed a bug on the BRCK that caused the local dashboard not to appear.
• Improved the reliability of the WiFi connection between your computer and the BRCK especially when trying to configure a connection for the BRCK via WiFi Bridging. At the moment the BRCK will sometimes drops the WiFi connection. This fix reduces that frequency and the chances of this happening. There are still a few more improvements to be done here, but this step improves from the current experience.
• Added a more reliable BRCK software update feature. This will allow the BRCK to automatically update critical software. It generally also improves the update process from our current process. There are a few more additions to be done such as exposing this via the Cloud to allow a user to install custom software packages.
• The chart visuals have been revamped and you can now filter the upload/download stats by connection. In coming weeks, we’ll roll out the deep dive analytic pages. These will enable you to have wider view of your BRCK’s activity; battery, network stats etc
• The BRCK API is out and in beta! It goes without saying that you must have a BRCK to access and use the API. If you don’t have one, visit https://brck.com/shop and we’ll be happy to take care of that problem for you.  
• What can you do with the API? In it’s current state, you can query a BRCK’s basic info and it’s status data. If you so which, you can use the latter to build your very own BRCK dashboard. For early access, email us at support(at)brck(dot)com
• What’s in the offing? A notifications system that will enable you to receive an alert when “X” takes place.
• While we’ve been working on the core software a lot, the GPIO expansion slot code is not quite ready, we’re very close to having it working, but it’s not there yet.

Hardware

The new 3d printed GPIO case prototype for BRCK

• We’ve made a revision on the primary board to ensure more stability. Currently being tested.
• A software patch to solve the issues with accessing the local dashboard. We’re testing it now, and our workaround is a small USB drive in the USB slot to fix the reliability of the onboard storage, that was preventing the offline configuration tool loading. Currently being tested.
• We’ve tested out a number of solar panels options, amplifiers and antennas. The best of which will go up on our shop for sale.
• We’ve been working hard with our plastics suppliers to clean up small issues on the rubber parts. The change of material will allow for even better robustness in the field without marking as much as the original Santoprene parts.
• A revision on the GPIO expansion board has been completed. Currently in testing.
• With the build rates going up, we’ve also had to invest heavily in automated testing. BRCKs now self test in the factory without as much human interaction.

As you can imagine, there are quite a few things we’ve been working on, beyond even the items listed here. Many bug fixes on all fronts, testing and modifications, and of course business-side work around the shop or partnerships. We’ll have some really fun news to share around the MRTR (hardware expansions) in the next couple weeks. Standby for more!

This weekend Reg, Philip and I took off for the Nguruman Escarpment, which is about a four hour drive outside of Nairobi. Our goal was to field test a BRCK with some friends of ours, Philip and Katy Leakey, who live in a tented camp at the top of the Ngurman escarpment, which is on the edge of the network.

Nairobi to Nguruman route, with elevation. Some areas at 31% grades.

The town of Ngurumani sits at the base of the escarpment, and you rise 3,000 feet on a rough dirt road in order to get to their camp. The Leakeys use solar and generator power, and the only way they can get internet is using either spotty 3g dongles, or very expensive (and slow) VSAT services. It’s not ideal, and for a couple who run some amazing businesses with global reach, that grow wealth in their Masai community, it’s a real problem to not be connected to the internet consistently.

The Journey

Early Sunday morning, we set out. I had done this drive in a car before, but wanted to see if I could do it on the motorcycle too, so both Philip and I rode out on bikes while Reg followed in the Land Rover. It’s an incredibly scenic trip, as you go through the dry, Masai country, over the sodium flats of Lake Magadi with their pink and white ponds, and into the back country. The views from the escarpment are majestic, and the air is clean and crisp, unlike Nairobi.

Coming down a steep and rocky hill overlooking Lake Magadi

Reg in the Land Rover at Lake Magadi

Philip crossing a stream

The good news was that we did the ride with no meaningful problems.

The bad news was that I was unprepared for just how difficult the climb up to the top of the escarpment is. In a car it’s tough, but 4 wheels give you some balance, as well as much needed traction when you get to the really steep grades that have a lot of sand beneath you. As if courting disaster, I also had forgotten to change my tires on my motorcycle to knobbies until too late, so was stuck going up in city tires. Not a good idea. There’s a part of the road that gets to 31 percent grade, with S-curves and if you slow down, you’re in trouble.

I ended up stalling out on this one particularly steep portion, and was exhausted trying to keep it upright, and push the bike forward as it dug itself deeper into the sand and gravel. Finally, Reg caught up with me and was able to help push as I got it going again, and we were able to get to the top without any more issues. The way back down was just a controlled slide, as the brakes helped, but you couldn’t actually stop yourself from progressing downwards. One particular S-curve remains engraved in my memory, since that’s where a cobra dropped from a bush next to me. Fortunately it was small, and wanted to get away from me as much as I did from it, so we parted amicably.

The Field Test

We carried with us an assortment of large and small antennas, and we were particularly keen to try out the new ones from Poynting Antenna in South Africa. We also brought the normal BRCK, Sandstorm case and our Wilson antenna amp (booster). Beyond that, we carried our standard medical kit, tools, SIM cards and water.

Using a Yagi from Poynting Antenna

The main antenna we used was the large, 1 meter-long, cast aluminium Yagi antenna by Poynting. It’s big, tough and not easy to pack around with you, but it gets the best gain. We were easily able to reach out and grab the signals from the mobile phone towers about 4-5 kilometers away, and we got 90% or 54dBi.

It turns out that you can get three mobile phone connections from the Leakey’s. Safaricom has a decent signal, but the tower that serves the people in that community has no internet connection, to that was a dud. Orange also has a tower, and supposedly the internet data connection does work on it, but it wasn’t a strong signal and we didn’t have any luck with it. Airtel, on the other hand, had a good signal and had a data connection.

Philip and Reg getting the BRCK working at the Leakey’s camp

Lessons Learned

While we had strong signal, we had two issues that we needed to solve, and only an hour to do it before we had to head back down the hill to make it back to Nairobi before dark.

First, we mainly use Orange and Safaricom internally, and didn’t have an Airtel SIM card with us. Fortunately Katy had one, so we were able to use it. This was an oversight on our part, and we’ll stock a couple of these Airtel SIMs in the future.

Second, the Airtel SIM had no credit on it. Since all of us carry phones that hold micro- or nano-SIMs, we had no way of topping it up either. An easy solution is that we’ll carry a simple phone with us that we can do this with in the future, but we also want to explore how we can enable this same top-up activity using the local (non-cloud) dashboard of the BRCK.

Third, that not all towers work, some give bad information. Just because you get a signal does not mean that you are connected to the internet, even if it says “Edge” or “3G” on your phone.

All-in-all, it was a good excursion, a chance to eat our own dogfood outside the comfort of Nairobi and the iHub. It was a reminder to be more prepared (in both the journey and the field test), and also a great opportunity to see some less well-traveled parts of Kenya.

The BRCKs view of the valley

“Shipping BRCKs”, if you say that title out loud, and quickly enough, you’ll know how we feel just about now… 🙂

First shipments: July 17th

That date above is the most important thing that everyone wants to know. Next week we’ll test the BRCK production line, and ship out the first batch of devices. Finally.

It’s been all quiet on the BRCK front since May as we buckled down on two things; first, making sure the quality of the cases was up to par, and second, using this time to keep improving the software. I can tell you that we’re finally there on both items!

We’re all extremely grateful for your patience, and we’re excited to finally get the BRCK into everyone’s hands.

Nairobi Launch

If you’re in Nairobi, we’re having a launch on Wednesday, July 9th at the Sarit Centre. Our partners, Sandstorm, have been kind enough to let us do a “takeover” of their store, and we’ll have BRCKs on display, showing how they can be used for business, personal use, and for connecting to the Internet of Things (IoT).

You’ll have a chance to use BRCKs, a few will walk away with free devices, and you can ask the team any questions you might have.

Come by and see us.

The BRCK team sets up at the Rhino Charge 2014

We tend to be an adventurous bunch, and so it shouldn’t be surprising that Philip was the navigator for the BRCK vehicle in Kenya’s annual bushwhacking event called the Rhino Charge.

The Rhino Charge is unique, it works this way…

No one knows where the race will be until a week in advance, when a “jump off” town is named. People drive there the day before and are given a map to the camp. The night before the race, everyone is given 14 coordinates, with one as their starting point (each of the 65 cars are put at different ones, so about 5-6 at each node). The next morning at 5:30am they’re driven to their starting spot, and at 7:30am the whistle blows and they’re off. Each team’s job is to find the shortest route to all 14 spots and checkin within 10 hours. Whoever has the shortest distance between and finishes all 14 checkpoints, wins.

The BRCK Mobile – car 18

Rhino Charge vehicles checking in for scrutineering before the race

A couple of weeks ago the head of Rhino Charge got in touch with us to see if we’d mind setting up a few BRCK units for the competitors camp to allow people to get on WiFi there. We agreed, and soon enough Emmanuel, Jeff and myself were also going 6 hours north of Nairobi to Samburu country with Philip to setup some BRCKs.

Setting up the BRCK

It turned out that the Rhino Charge competitors camp and headquarters were about 10Km away from the nearest mobile phone tower. This meant that you could get a 3g signal, but barely, and it would fade in/out all the time. We were solving this problem at the competitors camp with the use of a directional antenna and mobile signal amp (booster).

We then got an urgent call from the head of Rhino Charge, HQ had just lost their internet and were wondering if we could switch our operations to their tent instead. Off we trundled with our gear and did the following:

The BRCK setup at the Rhino Charge HQ

• Directional antenna (by Wilson) pointed at the tower 10km away
• Wireless amp booster (by Wilson) to increase the signal strength
• 12v battery (by Brunton) to power the amp
• BRCK to transmit for WiFi
• BRCK with an ethernet cord to plug into a TP-Link 3420 to broadcast WiFi to their IT staff
• Safaricom SIM card with 32Gb of data
• Solar battery (by PowerMonkey Extreme) to charge the BRCK

Philip sets up the BRCK in the Rhino Charge HQ

Me setting up the directional antenna, using my car as a ladder

Takeaways

Whenever you do field testing, there’s always a sense of relief when things work as they should. In this case, it was extremely gratifying to be able to help the Rhino Charge HQ staff on their connectivity needs, and it validated a lot of what we say about connectivity when you’re in a place with poor infrastructure. The fact that we were able to get the BRCK up and going, provide the backhaul for all of the media and stuff happening around HQ was fantastic. The only time we lost signal was for a 5-hour spot when the main Safaricom tower we were connected to got hammered by too many spectators showing up and trying to check their Facebook feed… 🙂

This does go to show that when your last line of connectivity is the mobile provider, you’re really at their mercy for what is available on their mobile tower.

Moving the power button from the top to the side was a decision we made after our Turkana expedition. This was a good move, with the dust flaps on the side, we cracked open the BRCK when we got back and there was no dust inside the case at all.

When we were struggling to get connection, we needed to know that the BRCK needed to show us that it was struggling and what the issue was. Our redesign of the lights gave us this, and it was extremely helpful this time up north.

However, there’s also some lesson’s learned and things we want to improve on the BRCK, which is good news for everyone buying a device. When the BRCK team “eats our own dogfood“, you benefit. Here’s what we found that we didn’t like, and which we’re fixing (or have already fixed):

• We need to come up with a model that defines what “abnormal BRCK behavior” is. This would be extremely useful for sending out SMS alerts especially where the device is deployed in a remote location. To put this into perspective, Jeff and Emmanuel had to periodically drive to the HQ to check on the BRCK! (like a bunch of field officers in an NGO) [Working on, will be done before shipping]
• BRCK not turning off: On the day of the setup in the field, we attempted a reboot but the BRCK wouldn’t turn off. To circumvent this, we had to pop the top open and perform a short on the BRCK board. [Fixed]
• Spotty Connectivity: Before connecting the Wilson antenna, mobile network connectivity at Rhino Charge HQ – via the BRCK -was extremely spotty; signal strength was below 22dBm. We have no way of communicating this to the user. In our opinion, the lights aren’t sufficient to communicate this simply because it’s too much information for the user to memorize. Recommendation: Communicate this info via the on-board dashboard. [Working on, will be done before shipping]
• Detection of connected network interfaces: Both the 3G and Ethernet network interfaces were connected and active but this information was not been reflected on the cloud dashboard and preferences page. [Fixed]
• Local SIM metadata: The phone number of the SIM and it’s respective mobile network wasn’t available on the cloud (and is not yet being pushed to the cloud). Having this information would have made balance top up of the local SIM less of a pain. [Working on, will be done before shipping]