Young Designers 2011

		Young Designers 2011
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Ankit Vyas | sxnkit@gmail.com

Indiglow

Product Design | PGDPD
Guide: Bhaskar MR Bhatt
Sponsor: Electrical Research and Development Association, Vadodara

Keywords
Manually rechargeable
Lighting solution
Rural India
Mobile lamp

My diploma project was to analyze an existing electrical system and modify the same for a manually-rechargeable lighting solution for rural India. The final product is an LED-based lighting system operated by a back-up battery, which can be recharged manually with a dynamo.
Currently, 70 per cent of India’s population resides in rural areas. Many of these areas are electricity-deficient. While some cannot afford it because of the low income of the people, many areas simply do not have adequate supply. This hampers other facilities such as education as well as occupational and daily activities.
For this project, I had to understand this scenario, study the users’ lifestyles, understand their habits, trace the constraints and develop solutions accordingly. The product had to be highly-adjustable, easily-chargeable, efficient, portable and multifunctional with an easy-to-use interface. Flexibility, which would allow it to be accommodated anywhere, was an important aspect of the design solution.
The product consists of a mobile lamp with a stationary dynamo for charging. By charging it for just 10 to 15 minutes a day, the lamp can function for six hours. This allows the user to buy multiple lamps with a single charging unit, making it cost-effective. A group of people or a community can buy some charging units instead of many lamps to reduce the cost per head. The lamp’s features include handle, nail-hole and provisions for hanging and plugging to make it as functional as possible. It can be snap fitted into the charging unit.
In this project, I learnt how to design a solution with just the resources that are available.