SolarBuddy, an Australian charity, helps children in energy poverty. They educate students and employees about energy poverty while having them build solar-powered lights. These lights are given to children globally to help them study at night.

I began by studying the issues faced by the Operations & Quality Control team. Through close collaboration with Operations, I documented the types and frequency of building errors they encountered. This analysis helped identify key faults in the current assembly process.

We also analysed damaged lights returned from the field after up to three years of use. This helped us evaluate how environmental conditions affected the lights.

To gain a deeper understanding of how children in energy poverty used our lights, I joined a distribution trip to Papua New Guinea. During my stay with a local family, I experienced firsthand the living conditions and effects of energy poverty on both parents and children. I observed how the children used the lights in their villages, homes, and schools. These direct observations revealed several potential improvements we could implement.

Our quantitative and qualitative research revealed clear opportunities for improvement, leading our team to initiate a complete redesign of the original light.

The redesign process presented complex challenges, as we needed to meet multiple objectives and accommodate diverse users. The light had to be simple enough for students to build, durable enough for distribution partners to transport, and robust enough for children to use in extreme conditions.

Four Autodesk employees joined me virtually before we began sketching. Together, we generated numerous concepts focusing on waterproofing, usability, versatility, user feedback, recycled plastic, form, and humanisation of the product.

Initial ideas focused on using snap-fits to ensure consistent assembly. However, feedback revealed that our users enjoyed the tactile experience of screwing components together. Therefore, we opted against snap-fits to maintain an engaging assembly experience.

Prototyping and testing formed the project's core phase. We designed, prepared, and printed hundreds of models to test various components: housing fit, button design, handle durability, lens clarity, waterproofing, and more.

Collaborating with our engineering partner, we looked at humanising the design even more with mood indicators so the children will know when their buddies batteries have had enough sun or when they are running out of life. This in turn, would increase the batteries’ longevity. We also introduced new modes to address user needs and allow for more use cases of the light.

Working closely with our manufacturers, we tested pre-production prototypes and prepared the light for tooling. The new lights are now being used in SolarBuddy's programs worldwide.