Just as the sun has finally come back to London, Martin and Jim have emerged from months in the workshop where they have been further refining and testing GravityLight. They have now finalized the design that will be used for our global trial and, of course, be sent to those of you who requested one in your pledges.
Specifically, GravityLight is now even more robust – ensuring that any overload or rougher handling of the weight will be clearly indicated, through some simple feedback, to the user. We have also been through a process of virtual modeling, in parallel to the extensive physical testing, which has led us to refine the gear geometry and redefine the specific formulation of plastics, so we now have a low cost solution that we are confident meets our targets for strength. Given it will be put through it’s paces in a variety of different environments, this will help ensure it lasts as long as possible!
Several ways to improve the quality of the light have been explored. We now have the ability to provide a wider range of power and duration adjustment, and we have further increased efficiency. We felt that the range should be extended so that we can understand from the trial what is essential, what is most useful, and if other applications for the power can be found, beyond light, radio and trickle charging of batteries.
The insight from Martin’s personal holiday to Sri Lanka that households used several kerosene lights around their rooms – and those with electricity used strings of lights fed into our exploration of what useful peripheral devices could be attached to GravityLight. We plan to get feedback during our trials on which are the most useful.
We now have the exciting – and long – route to producing our first batch! This entails completing the tooling, testing samples, ironing out any issues with the production process, getting final samples and then - when we’re happy the quality is right – it’s full speed production. Providing no glitches, this takes us to the end of the summer when we’ll start shipping the units around the world.
So thank you for your continued support of GravityLight and your patience. As we mentioned, your overwhelming support enabled us to make an even better and more efficient model.
From the emails that continue to flood in, it’s incredibly exciting to see how many people think GravityLight would be a great solution in their countries and communities. We’ve also been honored to receive recognition as a “World top 10 most innovative companies in energy” by FastCompany, to win the 2013 Invention Award from Popular Science and to be nominated for the Index: Design to Improve Life® Award.