Portable Fridge

You will hear a student talking about a science project she has done. Listen to the talk and complete the details below. Write one word only in each gap. You will hear the talk twice.

This term in science we’ve all had to choose an inventor or invention to do a project on. I decided to do mine about a prize-winning portable fridge that I’d heard mentioned on the radio. Then I looked it up on Google and discovered a lot more about the fridge and the person who invented it. His name is Will Broadway.

You might think that he was motivated by the desire to keep drinks cool on sunny summer picnics, but that wasn’t the case. His intention was to find a way of preventing medicines from getting too warm, especially when they had to be transported in very hot countries, it’s been claimed that by making this possible his invention could help to save 1.5 million people across the world.

Will had just finished a degree in industrial design and technology. A trip to Cambodia had made him understand the difficulties that the heat caused. He saw people having to carry so much ice to keep things fresh when they needed to travel somewhere and decided that there had to be a better solution to the problem. But it was only when he was on holiday in Mexico that he came up with the actual invention.

So how does this thing work? Well, it involves heating a chemical called ammonia, with water in one section of the fridge to create a gas. This gas is then released into the main section when it has to cool and it can keep items at a steady temperature of between two and eight degrees for up to thirty days.

He was also influenced by an invention called the Icy ball that was actually first described in nineteen twenty-nine. The Icy ball used a similar chemical process but it wasn’t very light and Will’s plan was to develop it into something that would be more easy to carry.

Part of Will’s preliminary research involved finding out how much someone who’s not particularly strong can carry without difficulty. He discovered this to be eight kilogrammes, and so, this was the weight he wanted his invention to have. It is small enough in size to fit easily into a backpack. It’s capable of transporting, for example, two thousand doses of vaccine.

The unit can be used for six days without any need for recharging. It goes without saying that the invention meets international safety standards. He hopes that it may have many possible uses across the world. He sees it as being essential, for example, for the safe transportation of supplies for use by nurses working in remote tropical regions without the regular support of doctors.

Will is so convinced of the need for his fridge that he is not motivated by any fame that might result from it and all profits go back into scientific research. He simply wants to do something that will have a positive effect on the life of people who are living in difficult conditions.

Here are the keywords and phrases covered in this lesson:

• ammonia
• industrial design and technology
• international safety standards
• invention
• portable fridge
• preliminary research
• motivated
• safe transportation
• scientific research
• steady temperature
• tropical regions