Luis Zambrano

Who was Luis Zambrano?

Luis Zambrano was an self-taught inventor and mechanic from Mérida, Venezuela.

He left formal education after the fourth year of primary school, but soon began to develop an interest in mechanics, enjoying discovering for himself the speed ratios produced by connecting oranges of different diameters and rotating them by means of jets of water. These toys lead him to consider new challenges and discover of physical principles in practical ways.

In his Valle Nuevo workshop in the village of Mariño de Bailadores, he empirically and intuitively learned enough about electricity and mechanics to allow him to create about 50 inventions, some of which were commissions, such as a strawberry-peeling machine and a sieve for categorising garlic, and numerous improvements to various different machines, despite having lost his right hand to a saw in an accident in 1977.

He developed water turbines used to generate electricity and to move a carpenter's mechanical instruments such as a lathe or plane. His home was the first house in the area to have electric light, which was generated by a turbine of his own design before the national electric company CADAFE reached his village.