+ TGG celebrates Oktoberfest

Have you ever wondered why Oktoberfest starts in September? We're not complaining, but we wanted to stretch it out. To celebrate Kaleidoscope's 20th anniversary, we recently threw an Oktoberfest open haus. The party wouldn't be complete without some concepts, so here are just a few of our favorites. Let us know what you think!


Boom
Boom combines a simple, elegant form and a delightful detail: a small mushroom cloud blown into the base of the glass.


Beer Drop
Crying and drinking go hand in hand, in spite of society’s reluctance to accept it. This glass celebrates those who have the courage to wear their heart on their sleeve.


Beer Bell
Tired of being such a lightweight? Ashamed of getting drank under the table at your local watering hole? Awaken the sleeping drinker within with your very own set of beer bell glasses! Your set will include an 8, 12, 24 and 40 oz beer bell with corresponding cozies to keep your beer frosty and your grip strong! With a little will power and determination you’ll soon be pounding 40 oz brews with the greatest of ease!



Boilermaker
A popular happy hour special in New York City consists of a cheap shot and beer. You take your grimace worthy shot and chase it down with a cold brew. This concept brings a level of sophistication to the Boilermaker combo which consists of a shot of whiskey served in a solo cup and an ice cold PBR. Although, it still pays homage to the low brow nature of the drink by floating the shot in the foam of the beer. It’s a dirty drink for a dirty bar!


Blitzkrug
Drinking beer from traditional German glasskrugs is one of the most social ways to enjoy a brew. However, the glass vessels are extremely heavy and fail to keep the last few swigs cold, assuming you’re not chugging them. The aluminum Blitzkrug weighs less than glass and keeps beer colder for longer. Keeping tradition in mind, the design features a utilitarian aesthetic that places each toast at the center of attention. With each cheer, Blitzkrug becomes dented and scratched, creating a visual history of every celebratory smash. Prost!

+ MemoryMate helps students and teachers

While studying education, we had the great opportunity to interview a special education teacher in Cincinnati schools. We learned about the unique approaches and challenges around teaching students with learning disabilities and were inspired to help.

Memory and organization are the biggest problems for these students, so teachers have created a system that uses binders, an accordion folder, and pencil pouch to give each student the structure they need to keep track of assignments and projects. However, the teacher’s job isn’t done when the final bell rings. Students often forget about homework the moment they leave class, so teachers must call home each night to inform parents of the assigned projects. This added responsibility can distract from actual instruction, so we developed a concept to make the system more efficient and help students be more independent.

MemoryMate is an intelligent organization system for students with learning disabilities. It replaces the traditional accordion folder and adds an intelligent system of reminders.

MemoryMate is an intelligent organization system for students with learning disabilities. It replaces the traditional accordion folder and adds an intelligent system of reminders. By adding visual and audible cues, students are reminded of each subject and assignment that is due. The concept upgrades a system of folders and binders with digital technology, saving teachers time from administrative duties and letting them focus on true instruction.

Typically, teachers must individually stuff each student's folder with hand outs for nightly assignments. With MemoryMate, students receive files wirelessly via the teacher's computer. Students' individual needs can vary greatly, but paper handouts limit the assignments from being customized. MemoryMate allows teachers to easily customize assignments based on individual student needs.

Recognizing that certain stigmas can be associated with this type of product, we created a bracelet, watch, and phone application to give students options.

Finally, the current method lacks any reminder system, forcing the teacher to call home each night to relay the assignments to parents. In addition, students need help remembering to take their medications on a regular basis. MemoryMate offers a suite of products to provide students with reminders. Recognizing that certain stigmas can be associated with this type of product, we created a bracelet, watch, and phone application to give students options. Young students wear the rubber bracelet much like they would a Livestrong band. As they mature, the watch and phone app provide them the reminders they need, while also helping them feel like they've moved into young adulthood.

+ Flexboards Remake the Classroom

Researching education over the past month, we’ve learned a few things about how people learn. We were particularly inspired by Prakash Nair and Randall Fieldings’ writings in The Language of School Design:

We should be looking beyond the ‘knowledge’ worker who is now a global commodity. Our most valuable export as a country will be creativity and innovation and these skills are not developed in the cells-and-bells model of school.

The problem: Existing classroom furniture dictates teaching style.
The disparity between our school classes and the way we do work as Design professionals struck us as a potential opportunity. By speaking with teachers, we learned that the furniture dictates much of their teaching style, while small budgets keep their hands tied from upgrading to a better system or buying new technology. According to Nair and Fielding, there are 18 different ways of learning, but we see the typical classroom system accommodating only one, lecturing, really well.

The solution: Flexboard
To solve these problems, we created the Flexboard. No one layout works for all classes and teachers. The Flexboard allows teachers (and students!) to pick the best layout for each class, subject, or grade level, freeing them from constant lecturing in favor of team collaborative work, project based learning, and one-on-one mentoring. Students gain independence to work on projects and learn in many new ways. Perhaps most importantly, the Flexboard uses existing technologies that make it both affordable and scalable.

The Flexboard’s multiple positions allow teachers to use it for a variety of learning styles. The base version acts as a magnetic whiteboard, a presentation space, a work table, and a room divider. By configuring groups of these boards together in multiple ways, many of the learning modalities can be accommodated in addition to lecture, especially team collaborative work, one-on-one learning with the teacher, project based learning, and student presentations. Check out Design Share for more on learning modalities and patterns.

The Interactive version adds an LCD monitor screen with an existing ultrasonic marker system to provide a digital interactive tool akin to a Smartboard®, but in a portable mode not tied to projector. It’s also easy to see how the new Microsoft Surface System could replace existing technology for expanded interactive capability.

Flexboards can be introduced seamlessly into a classroom. If a teacher is resistant to the changes a Flexboard can offer, the product can act as a traditional “blackboard” while the teacher develops new lesson plans.

Nair and Fieldings’ experience led them to state:

...social discourse and collaborative learning are critical to the development of well-rounded citizens…these skills are actually at the top of the list of qualifications for success in almost any profession.

Missing from the traditional classroom is collaborative work. By getting out of their seats and working in groups, students experience a visual way of learning that teaches them the creative problem solving techniques they need as professionals. Flexboard features a call light, so that students can get the attention of their instructor even in this new layout.

We learned that the biggest challenge for special needs students and teachers is having to leave the classroom. Specialists such as Speech pathologists want to multiply their effectiveness by working with students during their regular classroom lessons. Teachers can use Flexboards to create a small space within their classroom for one-on-one instruction, or a small breakout space with additional media such as special audio-visual aids.

Flexboards help educators by giving them a flexible, affordable, and useful furniture system that fits within their current classrooms and budgets. They add a higher level of involvement for students and teachers in configuring their space, creating ownership and enjoyment through personalization.

+ The Kegstand

To wrap up our unit on leisure and entertainment, we tapped into a demographic group that devotes much of its time to activities in this category - college students. This demographic splits its time between classroom attendance and social events, and who doesn’t think of a keg party when they think of the college experience? We'd like to present to you our latest concept, the Kegstand.



As we began defining our concept we discussed sustainability, realizing the keg lifecycle is optimal - rent, return, refill - then rent again. So we went into the field and looked for other opportunities to improve the keg experience. We discovered that the three key areas in need of our help were transportation, maintenance, and entertainment.

Transporting a keg is sub-optimal. The weight and shape often require two strong individuals to move the keg to its party location. We added handles and wheels to our concept so that the Kegstand can easily transport a keg from the store to your backyard.



Second, we evaluated the required maintenance while using a keg. 10 out of 10 college students prefer cold beer; so submerging the keg in ice is essential. Here's where it can get tricky: Users have the daunting task of lifting the 15.5 gallons of beer into an aluminum trashcan, usually in front of some snickering friends and/or attractive women. Because the host house sacrifices their trashcan, trash becomes unmanageable, piling up around the house to be cleaned up the following day. (How did this cup get in the shower?) Also, our ethnography informed us that the tap’s nozzle should never touch the ice. Consuming small amounts of melted ice mixed with keg foam and spilled beer is not preferred.



To address these issues, we broke the keg cozy down into two parts. Users now only lift the keg about a foot onto the base, then slide the top half over the top and buckle it down. Dump in the ice and you're ready to go. When you're finished, a plug allows for easy drainage of melted ice. Built in hooks let the hosts hang a garbage bag to do their best managing all the empties.

Our ethnography informed us that the tap’s nozzle should never touch the ice. We added a cap display so you no longer have to ask, “What kind of beer did they get?” Then we added a cup dispenser and serving tray so you don't have to jockey for position waiting to fill up.

Finally, we wanted to make the keg the center of the party instead of that guy. We added a cap display so you no longer have to ask, “What kind of beer did they get?” Then we added a cup dispenser and serving tray so you don't have to jockey for position waiting to fill up.



The Kegstand would cost more than stealing your neighbor’s trashcan, but we found that most rent a bucket or trashcan when renting their keg. So we present this concept as an appealing upgrade to the current retail landscape.

If you are a keg connoisseur or passionate about innovation in this category, please contact us - we would love to share more with you on a confidential basis.

Cheers!

+ Samsara Surfsystems

The core of the surfing community is based around getting outside and playing hard in the waves, sand and sun. Surf culture is understandably embracing of sustainable ideals, but current production methods for surfboards are very much out of sync with those ideals. The industry standard surf board is made from a polyurethane core which is shaped by hand, wrapped in fiberglass cloth, and sealed in resin. The end result is a product that has a completely unmitigated ecological footprint; petroleum based, large quantities of carbon dioxide emitted in production, and non recyclable. In an effort to put close the gap between the surf community’s ideals and the product that is at the heart of the sport, we developed Samsara.

Surf culture is understandably embracing of sustainable ideals, but current production methods for surfboards are very much out of sync with those ideals.

Samsara is a concept for a completely closed loop product cycle that provides surfers with a board that minimizes their footprint on the environment. It begins with the board being made from Nylon 6 using SLS (selective laser sintering). SLS is traditionally a rapid-prototyping technique, and allows for some unique opportunities like the structure of Samsara’s core; a light but strong cellular-type structure that would be unproducable by traditional production methods. The entire board is made from one piece of Nylon 6 in a matter of hours. This particular type of nylon is 100% recyclable which will come into play later in the product cycle.

SLS is traditionally a rapid-prototyping technique, and allows for some unique opportunities like the structure of Samsara’s core; a light but strong cellular-type structure that would be unproducable by traditional production methods.

Once the board is made, it goes out to the surfer and lives the life of any other board on the market. Surfboards are a balance of minimizing weight and maximizing strength, and due to the enormous forces of the waves (and the beating they get from the user) will eventually deteriorate and possibly break. When this happens to Samsara, it is returned to the manufacturing facility in pieces. Due to the recyclability of Nylon 6 and the board’s one-piece construction, the pieces are reground, depolymerized and inserted back into the manufacturing cycle. This gives the customer the opportunity to choose a new structure pattern and get a discount on the new purchase. Basically the damaged board is reincarnated as a new one- strong, and ready to ride. The new board is then sent back out to the user and the cycle begins again.

+ Apsara Solar Umbrella

In determining opportunities in Leisure and Entertainment, we checked the latest US Census report. To our surprise, the category exists and lists 50 activities by frequency of adult participation. Among the highest ranked activities are social ones, usually involving food.

We challenged ourselves to develop a product with the broadest market opportunity by considering the top 5 categories listed, and creating a single ecologically friendly product concept with applications in each category. The categories (ranked highest to lowest) are: Dining out, Entertaining Friends or Relatives at Home, Reading Books, Barbecuing, and Going to the Beach.



To increase the challenge, we wanted to identify a product for sale in commercial and consumer markets.

With sketchpad in hand, we went to Apsara restaurant in Cincinnati and headed to the patio for tempura, ebi soro and a custard desert. It was a sunny, breezy day and a perfect environment for contemplating lofty ideas of leisure and entertainment. Thoughts went to beaches and patios, sun and shade, eating and drinking, and …reading.

Product categories quickly gravitated to furniture; lounge chairs, tables and umbrellas …for eating or reading …for individuals or companions …for day or night. Then “voila”- an umbrella for day and night. It blocks light during the day and emits it at night. This new umbrella serves one person reading or dining alone, or a group socializing at home or dining out. And now for the best part – solar energy is gathered by the fabric upper surface during the day, while blocking sunlight; is stored in the umbrella fabric layers until needed; and is used to power the luminescent fabric under surface during the night.



The Apsara Solar Umbrella is a familiar looking teak frame umbrella with flowing cotton fabric that pleases the senses. The Apsara has a “catch-and-release” fabric that absorbs light from above during the day and disperses it below during the night. Totally self-contained, the umbrella can be taken anywhere and used anytime. It can be stuck in the sand on a beach or placed in a café table on the patio at home.



Technology can be utilized to make the solar umbrella a reality. The Flexible solar panels are available here. Development is underway to make it even more flexible through photovoltaic materials.



Flexible batteries are available and research is underway to make even more flexible batteries, reported by Science Daily and the BBC.
Also, Enfucel has a commercially available flexible battery. The concern with current technology is the battery’s life cycle and recycling aspects.



Flat panel LED light pipes are currently available from various sources including optomarket.
These products can produce the type of light envisioned, but do not offer the flexibility. Flexible light pipe materials are available here and can be woven into fabric.



Bringing the 3 components together to provide a truly flexible “catch-and-release” fabric is the final step in making the Apsara Solar Umbrella a reality. The Apsara Solar Umbrella offers an alternative to current nighttime illumination. It targets all who enjoy the outdoors, and its technology offers a substitute to existing energy sources.

+ Papyrus

With the growing popularity and widespread use of communication tools like texting, Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, today’s students are more connected than ever. However, few educational solutions take advantage of these tools. Some schools use software like Blackboard, but the interfaces are clunky and outdated. Students don’t like it and faculty can’t or won’t use it. With that in mind, we present Papyrus.

Papyrus is an inexpensive, student oriented e-reader specially designed with collaboration in mind. It allows for on screen note taking with a stylus, as well as tagging the content. These tags are comments similar to those found on discussion forums, shared among all the students and the instructor in a given class. With all of this in mind, Papyrus also serves as a digital replacement for a student’s loaded backpack as it provides textbook, notebook and even a calculator all in one.

Papyrus’ stripped-down, specialized interface makes it accessible to a broad range of users. It’s simple enough that faculty and other adults won’t be intimidated or annoyed, yet functional enough that students will feel like they’re using something current.

One of the most important details about Papyrus is how it is so different from a traditional style tablet PC or PDA. First, the unit is far less expensive at around $100. With a combination of a removal of audio, high-end graphics card, Ethernet port, and a textbook publisher/manufacturer subsidy (due to the subscription based service now that they have no overhead costs of shipping/storage/most manufacturing costs since their books are now digital) the cost is quite reasonable. Second, the device has a much longer battery life (around 30 hours) from using an E-Ink screen. Third, Papyrus’ stripped-down, specialized interface makes it accessible to a broad range of users. It’s simple enough that faculty and other adults won’t be intimidated or annoyed, yet functional enough that students will feel like they’re using something current.

Many students don’t participate in class because they’re afraid of drawing attention to themselves. Papyrus places students in an environment which they’re already familiar with (Facebook, MySpace, etc), giving them a safe, familiar venue to speak out without unwanted attention. It also lowers costs for textbooks by eliminating manufacturing and shipping costs and passing the savings on to students.

Papyrus gives teachers the ability to respond to student issues as soon as they appear in a post and gives the chance to create a game plan for the next class meeting.

Papyrus gives teachers the ability to respond to student issues as soon as they appear in a post and gives the chance to create a game plan for the next class meeting versus going into the situation blind, wasting precious class time trying to figure out where to pick up from the last assignment. Most importantly, Papyrus provides collaboration and communication without the distractions of current technology like laptops.

With rising energy costs, other big beneficiaries to the Papyrus device include textbook manufacturers and publishers. This subscription based model means an optimized cost structure with steady revenue. Digital distribution lowers exposure to rising cost centers like fuel and raw materials. It eliminates the used textbook market, allows them to add rich content to books, and delivers updates and corrections without printing a new edition.

Papyrus may not be the end-all-be-all solution to better communication and collaboration in the classroom, but we hope that the concept can be a catalyst for discussion about improving the classroom experience for everybody involved. Please let us know what you think.

+ Tame Your Multitasking

Multitasking is impossible to escape in today’s world. As humans, we’ve always had the desire to stay connected to the people around us. Now that technology has made this easier than ever, we’ve developed a fear of urgency that any given phone call, email, or text might be really important. Multitasking is necessary, but it can be dangerous in some situations. Texting while driving is the number one distraction for new drivers, but it would also be difficult to restrict all phone use in a car. While we’re stuck with this desire to be connected, we think we can tame our multitasking.

Tame is a concept that sets a status message synced with all of your devices and applications. If you’re driving or need some privacy, you can tell Tame to handle auto-responses to your phone, IM, text, Facebook, and more. You can store messages on each face, and when you need to change your status, just rotate the cube to the desired face. Besides a written message, Tame uses a red-yellow-green color coding system to let people know at a glance if they can contact you.

An away message in Instant Messenger is useless to a person who is making contact via mobile phone. Tame delivers convergence of all these services, ensuring that someone trying to contact you will know your status regardless of the method.

Currently, multitasking requires people to manage multiple devices and applications indepedently. An away message in Instant Messenger is useless to a person who is making contact via mobile phone. Tame delivers convergence of all these services, ensuring that someone trying to contact you will know your status regardless of the method. Online software allows the user to customize their status messages from anywhere they have internet access, and Tame updates live via Bluetooth. Most importantly, the Tame interface is buttonless. To safely switch your status to “driving,” simply spin the cube to the right face.

Multitasking is an important part of our personal and professional lives, but sometimes you need to focus. Tame lets you concentrate on work when you need to, without giving up the peace of mind that you will still be able to receive a call if it is urgent. Tame doesn’t screen any incoming calls, so you can still answer any message if you choose.

Tame offers an alternative to the current method where all messages are of equal importance and difficult to screen. We see both the benefits and drawbacks to multitasking, and aim to create a dialogue on how to be both safe and efficient with it.

+ Linc - The Lifecycle Concept Phone

When we attended the Greener Gadgets conference last month, we got totally charged up about the great presentations and discussions the panel had. We heard a lot of great ideas and opportunities for gadgets to really become greener, including product takeback programs, efficiency, and cradle-to-cradle philosophies. With that, we present our concept for a greener gadget - LINC.

LINC is a typical touch screen smart phone with all the connectivity and features you come to expect. Its got a cell phone, a media player, a web browser, GPS, downloadable content, Bluetooth, wifi, the latest 3G network. But here’s the catch. LINC is leased to the user as a service, not a product. The user holds on to the device for about a year, and when the next generation of hardware comes along, the user receives a new LINC in the mail. The LINCs inform the user of their hardware upgrade, wirelessly transfer the digital account, and before being shipped back to the manufacturer, LINC informs the user of the next part of its journey.


LINC is to be shipped back to a regional manufacturing facility. The device contains valuable materials like aluminum, glass, and electronic components that the producer can harvest for re-use. Typically, mobile phones contain hazardous waste that goes into a landfill or are left in a desk drawer to sit in.

LINC is designed for automated disassembly. A directed radiant heat beam targets its internal memory metal latch, releasing the assembly. In one step, LINC automatically disassembles into its few simple components, glass, aluminum and its circuit flex. The glass and aluminum, not containing any paints or adhesives, are easily recycled to pure grade materials for immediate reuse. The remaining flexible circuit contains all the electronics necessary for the entire device. It’s full of hazardous materials, but it has been safely recovered for proper disposal. Many of the chip sets can easily be pulled for reuse. Components like the graphics card are out dated for LINC, but can be used in devices like portable gaming systems.

In one step, LINC automatically disassembles into its few simple components, glass, aluminum and its circuit flex.

Linc changes the entire paradigm of the production and consumption model today. If implemented, a design such as this could greatly reduce hazardous waste and improve environmental health by reducing e-waste. But we also wanted something that is very desirable and in line with the kind of gadgets todays users expect. Something that targets all the key issues of today's gadgets and attempts to offer feasible solutions and start a discussion as to how we can do better.

LINC is leased to the user as a service, not a product.

+ Concept- Local Load-Levelling Power Storage Station

Load Levelling

A promising direction to avoid building more power plants is Demand Side management, seeking to lower peak energy usage. Two related concepts are Advanced Metering ("AMI") and large scale energy storage. AMI gives the consumers information about their consumption to help encourage them to cut back, especially during peak demand (4 pm on a 100 deg. F day in the city). Energy storage concepts use power generated at off-peak hours to charge up batteries or store energy in other ways.

Our research led us to propose a sub-neighborhood sized power station to help communities shave their peak power usage, and get power backup protection as a side benefit. We'll call it the local load-levelling ("3L") station. Sized for something like 20-60 homes in a several block area, the 3L Station is basically a mid-sized storage battery (50-100 kw sized) combined with a small diesel or fuel cell generator module . During off-peak hours, the batteries are charged from the electrical grid, with assistance from the generator if needed. At peak hours, the battery supplies the extra electrical load needed by A/C or other modern electric demands.


The sub-neighborhood tied into this system becomes a kind of local energy cooperative group, combining to avoid raising demand for a new power plant. Current generation technology is a small diesel generator gen-set with clean technology, such as the AdBlue or catalytic converter systems used on some European cars and trucks. A small natural gas reformer/hydrogen fuel cell arrangement may be possible in the very near future. The generator can be small because it has 2/3 of the day to charge the battery, if the battery is fully utilized. Another possible attribute is that the heat generated during battery charge and discharge could be captured and supplied to adjacent residences. In some locations, the community group served by this station could collectively add wind and/or solar power to help further reduce their total demand on the grid.

We see the station integrated into the neighborhood as a visually appealing asset, not hidden away. And that may be one of it's best attributes, because AMI field testing suggests that keeping power issues visible can be a powerful motivation for conservation.

+ A Lesson in Green...

With more and more issues of energy usage and conservation coming to surface within the past several years, one challenge has always been educating the general population and helping influence them to make better decisions about their energy consumption. However, what if the advantages to being a little greener were introduced to children as young as second grade? Elementary students around the world work through math story problems asking how many apples Suzie would have left if she started with nine and gave Johnny five, but what if these problems could be focused to cover a lesson in green as well as mathematics? Below are a few possible examples of some story problems for you to try if you dare ask one question: Are you smarter than a green 5th grader?


Today's Quiz -

1) Jodie’s mom recently read that it takes energy equal to 0.42 gallons of gasoline to produce and ship a single pound of beef, and energy equal to 0.01 gallons of gasoline to produce a single pound of vegetables. If her family consumes 25 pounds of beef and 35 pounds of vegetables every month:

a) How much gasoline does it take to produce the beef they eat?
b) How much gasoline does it take to produce the vegetables?
c) How many times as much gasoline does it take to produce a pound of beef compared to a pound of vegetables?



2) Mike just bought a new handheld game system with his saved allowance. He is trying to decide whether to buy rechargeable batteries or disposable alkaline batteries. Over the course of the year he will need either 48 disposable batteries which cost 85 cents per battery or 8 rechargeable lithium batteries which cost 2 dollars each.

a) How much will it cost Mike for a year of disposable batteries?
b) How much will it cost Mike for a year of rechargeable batteries
assuming he already has a charger?



3) Joanne lives in Cincinnati and wants to visit her sister in Chicago for the weekend. She knows that using as little gasoline as possible helps the environment and she can either choose to take a Megabus or her own car. The trip is 320 miles. Her car gets 30 miles per gallon and she’ll be the only person in it. The bus gets 10 miles per gallon on the highway, and 35 people typically ride on this bus at the same time.

a) How much gasoline will Joanne’s car need per person to make the trip?
b) How much diesel fuel will the Megabus need per person?
c) (Extra credit) If burning a gallon of gasoline creates 20 pounds of carbon dioxide ("CO2"), and burning a gallon of Diesel fuel creates 22 pounds of CO2, how much less CO2 will Joanne's trip take if she takes the bus instead of the her car?



How do you think you did? Below you can find the answers to the above problems in order to check your work. Ok, so maybe you found those math skills are a little rusty. Regardless, teaching elementary school children about the benefits of being green, as proposed by energy consultants and agencies such as NASA, should be a positive step.


Solutions:
Solution #1:
a) 25*.42 =10.5 gallons of gasoline
b) 35*.01 = .35 gallons of gasoline
c) 1 pound of beef requires .42 / .01 = 42 times as much gasoline compared to a pound of vegetables.

Solution #2:
a) 48 * $0.85 = $40.80
b) 8 * $2 = $16

Solution #3:
a) 320miles/ (30 miles per gallon * 1 person) = about 10.7 gallons of gasoline per person
b) 320 miles / (10 miles per gallon * 35 people) = about .9 gallons of diesel per person.
c) The car trip would generate 10.7 gallons * 20 lbs per gallon = 214 pounds of CO2. Joanne's share of the bus trip would generate .9 gallons * 22 lbs per gallon = 20 lbs of CO2. Taking the bus will save 214-20 = 194 lbs. of CO2!

+ Concept: LUTW LED Housing Redesign

We were inspired by the work of LUTW and wanted to take a quick look at how we might be able to improve the delivery of light to developing countries. This is a redesign of the existing LUTW LED housing, focusing on cost of delivery, user experience, and quality of light.

The LUTW System
The LUTW system consists of two LED lights in mountable housing, a solar panel, a rechargeable battery to store the power, and electrical wiring to connect it all. Volunteer technicians generally install the systems in small towns and variations on the system are available.


The Redesign
Our concept for updating the LUTW LED housing is a simple object that snaps together to capture the LED PCB and lens. The two sides are identical and can be created from the same mold. The housing has features molded in that allow it to be easily mounted, wired, and accessed for service. The loops on the edge of the housing serve as an easy interface for adding a shade to control the quality of light.


The redesign aims to reduce the cost of manufacture by reducing the number of parts in the system and the weight for transport. The concept is limited in its impact to just the LED housing, but it is hoped that with further research we can address the full system of lighting.