2/15/2011 Meeting Summary

Here's the lamp update for the week:

I. This Week's Meeting:
Yesterday we discussed our plan of action for finding a partner organization. We will update our brochure and then talk to Moses Lee for feedback on our brochure and pitch. After meeting with Moses we'll start contacting NGOs and trade schools. Our current model is to partner with trade schools and have them incorporate lamp building into their curriculum. This provides them with some additional revenue for the school and solves the sparse need problem. We found that there is a good directory of trade schools in Uganda. Pat and Liz worked on the generator and found that it generates slightly more power than expected. Liz updated us on her meeting with the EECS prof (details on the blog).

As a result of feedback during the general body meeting, we are going to try to build our lamp frame out of a single bike.

The main things that need to be fixed in the brochure are:
- mention more than just Africa as our target
- talk about technical school partnerships
- change hand-crank generator to bicycle generator

II. Action Items:
Melissa: Take pictures of the lamp with a mock head and counterweight; post Ugandan technical school directory to the blog
Mike D: Read the relevant sections of Abigail's thesis and post a summary to the blog (include technical info, location info, partner info, etc)
Dan: Update the brochure
Steve: Set up a meeting with Moses Lee
Pat: Do generator calculations
Liz: Talk to BlueLab about their bike generator
Jack: Calculate the specs we want for LEDs and look for some matching ones online

III. Abigail's Thesis:
Here's a link to Abigail's thesis: http://mirlyn.lib.umich.edu/Record/007294554.

Also, here's a link to her website (which has some relevant stuff): http://www.empowerdesign.com/

IV. Next Week:
Next week we'll be meeting at 8pm in the LBME project room. Some of the time will probably be spent in the Wilson Center putting together lamp heads.