In just about one minute, the rice harvesting machine created by mechanic Nguyen Ngoc Tri scooped up a 70kg bag of rice, clearing the grains from the field it passed over.
Over the past two days, social media in Phu Yen has been buzzing with excitement over the successful trial run of the rice harvesting machine invented by mechanic Nguyen Ngoc Tri (known as Ti, 36 years old, from Hoa Tan Tay commune, Tay Hoa district, Phu Yen province).
Mechanic Nguyen Ngoc Tri testing his homemade rice harvesting machine on the afternoon of April 20 – (Photo: DUY THANH).
Supporting Local Mechanics
On the afternoon of April 20, Tri pushed the machine from his family workshop out onto the concrete road in front of his house, where his mother was drying rice from the morning’s harvest.
Tri pulled the machine’s starter, and then it began to move slowly over the drying rice. A metal auger at the front fed the rice into a 14cm diameter tube. The rice was sucked up, separated into two funnels above, and flowed into bags that were secured to metal frames…
After the machine passed, not a single grain of rice was left because the plastic brushes mounted behind the auger had swept everything clean.
Nguyen Ngoc Tri tightening screws before taking the rice harvesting machine out for operation – Photo: DUY THANH
The machine has replaced labor-intensive tasks such as piling, sweeping, and bagging the rice. It operates with just two people: one to attach the bags to the machine and remove the filled bags from the machine, and another to sew the mouths of the bags that have been filled.
In about one minute, Tri’s machine harvested a bag of approximately 70kg of rice. He mentioned that if two people participated in changing the empty bags and removing the full ones, the harvesting speed could increase by simply throttling up.
This was the second afternoon that Tri brought the rice harvesting machine out for testing. Many curious onlookers gathered to watch and praised his invention.
“This mechanic is really impressive. The machine is fantastic, not only does it harvest rice quickly, but it also cleans up perfectly. If available, I would hire it to save labor and effort,” said Mr. Tran Huu Bao, a local farmer.
Easing Farmers’ Burdens
Reflecting on his product, Tri admitted there are still some shortcomings, such as its rough appearance and relatively large size (1.5m long, 1.2m wide, 1.7m high), and that there are still some small patches of rice the machine cannot fully harvest.
This young mechanic revealed that his family farms 3 hectares of land, yielding a large amount of rice during harvest season, which makes it quite labor-intensive for their small family. Many farming families in this area share similar struggles, motivating him to innovate and create this rice harvesting machine.
After graduating from a vocational school in mechanical engineering at Tuy Hoa Industrial College in 2008, Tri returned to his hometown, opened his own workshop, specializing in repairing tractors, manufacturing agricultural machinery, and creating farming tools…
With knowledge and experience, he faced several setbacks while working on the rice harvesting machine. Initially, he used a Honda engine to build it, but it proved too weak to simultaneously pull the suction and sweeping apparatus while moving the harvesting machine.
Rice harvested and cleaned by the machine – (Photo: DUY THANH).
“I had to switch to a 6.5HP gasoline engine for better reliability. Additionally, there were many other failures during the process that needed to be resolved. It took about a year to develop the current version of the rice harvesting machine for testing,” the mechanic disclosed.
According to Tri, he has only just created and tested this rice harvesting machine and has not yet calculated the total cost of materials or the fuel consumption during operation…
“The machine runs well, just as I hoped when I designed it, which makes me happy, but I haven’t figured out the costs yet,” Tri chuckled.
