Solar Light
2012-2013
Most of our projects involve training in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) to local children and young people. The objective for these services are to expose the children to new
concepts and exciting new ways of learning, and therefore, hopefully, to raise their level of interest in learning and staying in school.Depending on the age and literacy level of the children and young people involved, we taught different topics. For young children, or children with a low literacy level, we taught digital storytelling, which teaches the children to exercise their creativity to come up with a story, organize their thoughts into a logical format, express themselves with abstract concepts such as figures and/or programming logic, and finally, to produce their story in a manner that other
people can view and understand it.For older children, we taught robot programming, using our $9.99 robots. The children were asked to decorate the robot, which encouraged them to claim ownership over the device and subsequently their own learning. Then, they were taught some simple logical concepts and encouraged to put these concepts together to enable the robot to solve some simple problems, such as line following or obstacle avoidance. This required the children to think in a logical and precise manner. Our students also put together a science fair for the children. They used games to illustrate scientific concepts, such as force and reaction or electricity conductance and resistance. At each game, the scientific concepts were explicitly explained, who then had to apply them to solve some problem, such as throwing a ball to hit a target, or lighting up a bulb for a set amount of time.
Solution
Our final solution was a small, portable, integrated light with solar panels that could be carried out into the open to recharge during the day, and taken indoors at night to study by. The cases are waterproofed against downpours, and padded appropriately to withstand both a drop test and a bash test. To address the challenges of usability and robustness, a tilt switch was incorporated to turn on the light automatically when the whole case is tilted to the optimum angle for desk lighting.
This project required our students to integrate electrical engineering and product design concepts together with appropriate technology and usability. Instead of off-the-shelf solutions, our students chose to design their own light to best fit the requirements of the orphanage, and the challenges of the environment (such as the rough handling expected from children, and the torrential rainstorms.)
