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Hi-powered projection
Beto Peliks and fellow students designed a low-cost microfilm projector to help educate people in third-world countries
Jon Titus -- Design News, February 23, 2004
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To take advantage of educational opportunities, people in underdeveloped countries require access to teaching materials, usually books and other printed matter. In West Africa, for example, a few people may have to share a book under the dim light from a kerosene lamp. The cost of books, though, often puts them out of reach. To address this problem, a group of students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA) developed a projector that produces large, clear images so many people can share information stored on inexpensive microfilm. Their socially conscious innovation garnered them the ANSYS College Design Engineering Award for 2003.
Design Genesis
Mechanical engineering undergraduates at MIT must complete a senior-level design course. Unlike many academic projects, the MIT course gives a team of students, "Too big a project, too short a time, too small a budget, and too many people," according to Woodie Flowers, an MIT professor and one of the course leaders. "That situation closely mimics real engineering problems (except the too many people part)." The students work with Design That Matters, a nonprofit group that sponsors the development of products for use in "under-served markets." After reviewing hundreds of nascent ideas, the team came up with a handful of finalists and decided to tackle the design of a low-cost microfilm projector.
The product the students devised, named the Kinkajou Microfilm Projector, can accept a film cassette that stores 10,000 images. (The name Kinkajou comes from a nocturnal animal whose eyes seem to glow in dim light.) A microfilm cassette costs about $60, while the same printed material could cost $400. Beto
Peliks, a member of the student design team stresses that the low cost of a projector plus the lower cost of delivering information on microfilm will make the Kinkajou projector attractive to poor communities.
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| Shining through: The optical and light source section of a Kinkajou project lets light follow a straight path through lenses and micofilm to project a clear image with a minimum number of parts. The high-efficiency LED requires a heatsink. |
A Kinkajou projector comprises optics, a microfilm cassette, a motorized indexing mechanism, and a power supply, all in one housing. Light from white LEDs goes through condenser lenses, and passes through the microfilm. Then, focusing lenses project the film's image on a wall or simple screen. A rechargeable 12-V battery supplies power.
The latest light source employs a new high-efficiency white-light LED that delivers 5W of power. These powerful LEDs manufactured by a single vendor today, cost around $16 in volume. That price should drop as more companies enter the market. LEDs also offer the advantage of long life, unlike incandescent lamps that can require frequent replacement, particularly when handled roughly.
During work on the prototype, a mentor put the students in contact with the Light Up The World Foundation, which develops low-power and low-cost light sources for people who lack electricity. The foundation provided LEDs and the driver circuits used in the Kinkajou projector. Students in a similar design program at Worcester Polytechnic Institute will develop a new power-management circuit to drive the LED and charge the battery. Charging power in remote areas often comes from a hand-powered generator.
The team also had to take responsibility for the design of the optical system. But none of the members knew much about lenses or light transmission beyond what they learned in physics courses. Luckily, a team mentor connected the group with a consultant who helped design the optics.
Out To Africa
At the end of the course, the students had a prototype projector. Peliks, now a mechanical engineering graduate student at MIT, and several other students continued the project and built a new version of the projector. Four team members, along with Tim Prestero of Design That Matters, took their model to Mali to gauge reactions from the field.
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| Simple Design: A film cassette and take-up spool position microfilm in the optical path of a Kinkajou projector. Users simply thread the film through a series of capstans. A motorized indexing mechanism advances the film, or users can advance it manually. |
All along, the original team sought to design a projector that local people could build, maintain, and repair. That meant simple components and getting them made by local companies. "The projector includes a few critical components—pulleys and the optics—but almost everything else could be made out of local materials. It depends to some extent on who's making it," says Peliks. When the student team visited engineers in Mali, they suggested making the product out of scrap aluminum or steel, and maybe some wood.
"While in Mali," says Peliks, "we visited organizations to see if they wanted to manufacture the projector. Several, including a vocational school that teaches students how to work with metal and wood, expressed interest." So far, though, no one has signed up to produce the projector.
During the trip, the team discovered a fundamental problem—a lack of experience with microfilm. "Many people in Mali had never heard of microfilm. We didn't expect that at all," says Peliks. The designers will have to investigate potential local sources for microfilm. As an alternative, the projector may have to accept 35-mm slide film.
The team also encountered a second problem—finding educational content to distribute. They received some educational books from the nonprofit World Education Organization and transferred many pages to microfilm.
According to Tim Prestero, the Kinkajou project is moving into the next phase, design for manufacturing. Now that the original team has finished its prototype work, students at the University of Cambridge (Cambridge, UK) will take over. They'll integrate the new circuitry developed at WPI and devise an easy-to-manufacture design. According to Prestero, products designed by students go through three to five iterations between inception and release to manufacturing. To all involved, the Kinkajou Microfilm Projector represents a world-class engineering project that should yield results felt around the globe.
Contributing Writer Jon Titus can be reached atjontitus@comcast.net.
| Web Resource | ||
| For more info on the Kinkajou project Go to http://rbi.ims.ca/3845-557 |
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