Andrew Tso's Portfolio

This project was completed in a team of three for a Materials in Design course. The goal of this project was to design and build a tangible product which uses alternative energy sources such as solar and wind power.

Project Description

Drippler is a night lamp designed for users living in developing countries with no electicity. It is self-powered with a solar panel which charges an internal battery and with the weight of water which turns on the night lamp. Besides providing a light source, the blue LEDs shining through the water adds an aesthetically pleasing dynamic element to the simple function of the night lamp.

Design Process

I came up with an initial idea to use water as a timer and magnetism to power up a light source. When water drips from the top container to bottom, the scale tips which forces the magnet to make contact with the motor which then generates electricity and lights up a bulb.

Initial sketch

From the initial idea I came up with, we made several revisions to simplify the mechanisms. At the beginning, the magnet would make contact with a spinning motor plate which would generate electricity to light up the LEDs inside the tank. When water dripped from the tank into the container, it would then tip the scale and prevent the magnet from making contact with the spinning motor plate turning off the LEDs. From this concept, I built a prototype to understand the interaction and a magnet motor to test the mechanism however; upon testing, this idea failed.

Initial prototype

Rather than using complex mechanisms, we came up with the idea of having the weight of water to push down on a button. When water drained into a separate container, the weight on the button would decrease and eventually turn off the LEDs. From this concept, I built a button circuit, integrated it into another prototype to test and it worked.

Revised prototype

For the final prototype, we built the water tube and container out of clear acrylic and the base out of wood.

Final working prototype

Interaction diagram

Through this project, I was able to learn and understand more about material selection in product design and the importance of iterative prototyping and refinement in creating a finished product.

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