The sky is the limit for Morobean inventor

By PISAI GUMAR
FOR anyone aspiring to do something out of the ordinary or wanting to make a difference in life, they are often egged on by the saying; the sky is the limit.
For Sam Sky of Markham in Morobe, the adage holds extra meaning for him because of his surname.
A grade six leaver and self-taught welder and electrician, Sky is now making a name for himself despite not doing well in school.
Sky, whose parents hail from Salamaua and Mumeng in Morobe is a simple, soft spoken man.
He came to be renown some years back when he designed and built a manual peanut skin pulper upon the request of a woman farmer in Markham.
The pulper is able to mill 50kg of peanuts in 30 minutes.
He explained that it took him two weeks to design the machine.
For four months after that he scoured trash bins and rubbish dumps at old workshops and factories to find the materials to build the pulper and it took a further four months before the machine was finally ready.
With that achievement tucked under his belt, he has recently come up with another new innovation.
This time it was a mobile dredging machine.
The simplified alluvial gold dredging machine is very handy for alluvial miners and can also be used at night.
The machine can also be powered by a generator set.
Sky’s latest invention was launched during the 103rd ELC-Yabem district conference in Aseki, Menyamya last month.
“My aim is to help small coffee farmers and alluvial miners who are finding it difficult to travel to Lae, so that they can help themselves.” Sky said.
The gold dredging machine is not the last for Sky as he has already started work on a third invention, this time a mini hydro turbine which is already in use.
Sky is now concentrating on another alluvial mining machine that he hopes will be wholly powered by water and will do away with the laborious task of manually hand-sorting.
The new machine can be taken apart and fitted back together at any dredging site.
“I assessed the needs of the small people in villages and their needs give me ideas to design and build more simple-people-oriented and eco-friendly machines to save costs, time and importantly saves our environments from major destructions,” Sky said.
He also designed a manual coffee pulper but needs funding to complete the mechanism, which he says is a little trickier.
It is hoped that this latest pulper can be able to process 250kg of coffee parchments bags, at one go, into green beans in a time frame of half an hour.
Sky’s innovations and skills have been recognised and the Morobe provincial division of agriculture and livestock (DAL) has awarded him a coffee pulper trainee of trainer’s certificate.
Four other small engine designs are in the pipeline, but for the moment the inventor is keeping the details under wraps.
Sky established a small workshop in 1995.
From there, he collected scrap materials from the abandoned Yha Hauka coffee factory in Aseki and elsewhere around the streets of Lae and in factory backyards.
Sky became interested in the building of small machines when he worked at welding and engineering companies in Lae in 1980 and he soon found himself being hired by rural farmers to repair coffee pulpers, lawn mowers and other small engines in remote areas in Boana, Mumeng and Wau.
Soon, he was modifying, designing and building agricultural machines for farmers.
“When you recognize your inner potential and utilize it more meaningfully, it then becomes your passion and you work on it and build on it until the sky is the only limit,” Sky said.
He still dreams of one day having enough money and equipment to make sure his modest little workshop makes enough machines to effectively cater for the needs of the vast majority of rural people.
Menyamya MP Thomas Pelika has visited him to see what he is making and designing.
As an aspiring small businessman, Sky hopes that he can find some help soon so that he can, in turn, help to turn the lives of other rural people around.