Toon-van-Tuijl design award for the MoonLight

The MoonLight is the winner of one of the Dutch Design Awards, the Toon-van-Tuijl design price (check www.toonvantuijldesignprijs.nl and www.dutchdesignawards.nl). During the Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven, the lamp will be shown in the "Greenhouse" with all the other winners of the Dutch Design Awards.

Kamworks is now working even harder on the quick realization of the lamp... The price also includes some financial help for further development. There is also a new, more informative website with explanations of the company's core business and collaboration possibilities concerning further projects (www.kamworks.com).

Movie Design Award Show

And here is a small movie of the award show.

Movie about rural Cambodia and the development of the MoonLight

And here is a last movie to give a short impression of the surroundings of Kamworks and the living circumstances of families in rural Cambodia. Also, the last part shows some user research, which we did a lot and helped us to find an appropriate solution in this totally different context.

"MoonLight"/ "Ampoul Preahchan"

Officially, the project has been finished for a while... officially. Since our presentation end of July, we have still been busy with writing articles (e.g. for the BOP book of the university and for sponsors) and giving presentations (for sponsors). Doortje has been working on a range of new prototypes that will serve as demonstration pieces in different networks and projects.

Here are some more pictures of the last project phase in Cambodia:

Finally: At night in the workshop, excited about finishing the assembly of our very first prototype.


First test in a hut at night. Hard to capture the real effect with a camera, but: first enthusiastic reactions!

Some impressions from the extended user feedback sessions:





As many participants know us already from previous sessions, they dare to be very critical. Big relief: people are positively surprised and very motivated as they try out the lamp with the solar panel in their houses. Some families were even willing to buy the prototypes on the spot!

Kamworks indicated they would like to start producing the "MoonLights" as we called the product ("Ampoul Preahchan" in Khmer) as soon as possible. Hopefully this will happen! For more detailed information, please contact us!

We spent our last days in rainy Cambodia in rainy but beautiful Kampot instead of rainy Rattanakiri: Due to the weather, the roads to the North were too muddy and we had to return halfway... Some impressions from Kampot:

Women, working hard on the typical salt fields for very little money.

Rangers at Bokor Hill, a constantly foggy ghost village; a former recreation area for the French while colonization, later a refuge for the Khmer Rouge.
We collected so many pictures by now, that it is hard to choose... let us know if you are interested and want to know more about our project and/or our personal experiences in Cambodia. For now, a last one:

The "MoonLight" bringing Ana into trouble at Frankfurt airport...

Letzte Runde

Arjen during first production tests.


User tests including PV panel installation...

... and manual tests.

The solar campus has become empty and we are also leaving tomorrow. For a few days to Rattanakiri, then back home where we will have one and a half weeks to finalize the report.

Sad to leave the Kamworks people.

Sad to leave the canopy beds.

Looking forward to eating potato and pasta again.

Last cosy evenings with Angkor beer...

Prototyping

We have been working on the the prototype for a few days now. We have to make four moulds out of MDF, two for the outside shells and two more simple ones that are part of a new way of assembling the inner components. In parallel, we worked on the circuit boards for the prototype. The facilities are better at the TU in Delft, but until now it has gone quicker than anticipated. People here are used to improvising and know tricks.

Layer cake with non-subtle 12mm MDF, cut out by human power. Almost ready! In only one afternoon.

The MDF shapes the Dremel tools instead the other way around. Details have to be shaped by hand. Fits more to the speed of the environment (see pictures of the campus) anyway.

Doortje and Jan in the electronics workshop. Jan for the Angkor light, Doortje for our prototype.

Tom, lost in calculations for his graduation project about solar home systems.

In case we feel lonely, we will always have company outside.

How many kids fit into a car?

not enough yet...

Add some big kids. Go to the swimming pool.

Home.

The Solar Campus from the solar panels' perspective.

Typical scene: Desperate students searching for Kamworks WLAN in the period that the PicoSol net is down.


Waiting for the thunderstorm. Rainy season can be beautiful.

Horse with workshop.

Philip's construction: Lost fight against rain and wind.

On the way to our dinner.

Horse 2.

Happy housecalls

Never seen in Germany or Holland:

A typical image at our feedback sessions. As soon as mock-ups and drawings are involved, toda la familia, friends and neighbors join...

Life - an update

Internet is more often unavailable, just to explain why we posted less pictures the last weeks.
Waiting for feedback for our work we spent a few days in Sihanoukville which is situated at the coast. We had a very nice time, relaxing, a real source of energy.

Ana (white shirt) before getting sea-sick.

Tradition vs. change.

Beauty vs. dirt (smell!). The fishermen's port was a very special experience.

Coming back, we got quite a lot of interesting user feedback (we made simple cardboard models and storyboards and people loved to try out the handling and to participate in finding ideas). No clue why we thought that these sessions would be much more difficult!
Saturday was our first shopping day for the final prototype. We arranged a lot of things that we will need, except for yet undefined features, so that we can start whenever we took the crucial decisions.

Shopping à la cambodgienne. Most of the times we had to communicate with drawings...

... what turned out to be especially tough for electronic components. However, we found the needed tools and materials much quicker than anticipated.

Besides... rainy season brings little surprises from time to time.

Nobody knows how that fish came into our bathroom. Loucas says that it walked. The stupid thing is that there is no other option!

Anyway, it died, being fried together with a bucket full of snails by our 15 Khmer "flatmates" who have been following a course of four weeks at the Solar Campus.