The pulley has preformed as our engineers anticipated, completely controlling the bead cord throughout the entirety of the bag ‘lift’ and ‘drop’ – leaving no potential for the cord to get itself into a tangle.
Our Trip to Kenya: Part 3 - What did we learn?
The benefits of GravityLight are clear - it is independent of batteries, doesn’t rely on the weather, it doesn’t need to be pre-charged outside at risk of theft, and it saves people money previously spent on kerosene lamps. However, designing a distribution strategy that clearly communicates this is a big job, especially with a technology that is new and unknown.
GravityLight in Kenya: Focus groups with local communities
See footage of our Kenya focus groups which have helped us gain insights on how to tailor our packaging, communications and understanding of under electrified households in Kenya.
Testing: Packaging focus groups in Kenya
“The [kerosene] lamp emits smoke little by little and it fills the house and so it becomes a problem because children can have chest problems. Therefore it is not good. It does not have any advantage, just that one doesn’t have a choice that is why we use it… If I get something like this [GravityLight], I will not go back to using kerosene. This is because it cannot make someone sick, it will make one to have good health because it does not emit anything…”
In December, Caroline took the first SLA prototype along with these packaging and instruction guides out to Kenya to gather feedback from 40 men and women living with little, if any electricity around Nairobi county.
CNC Machining, Injection Moulding and Modern Day Wizards
Following meticulous testing of the CNC machined GL02 prototypes, we since commissioned injection moulds for each component and received the first batch to start accelerated life testing of these across Christmas and into 2016.
GravityLight at AidEx 2015!
GravityLight and our new SatLights were demonstrated to the international aid and development community at Aidex in Brussels.
An Update from the Workshop: Accelerated Life Testing
With the arrival of new prototypes of the GL02 design, we are testing and assessing their durability and performance over time. Having developed a bespoke Accelerated Life Testing rig, we’re able to condense one year of use - four hours times by 365 days – into two months of non-stop running.