SUNSEEKER - El buscador de sol

What is this about? The SUNSEEKER is a hybrid DIY quadricycle powered by solar energy or human traction. It is an ultra-light vehicle, simple, fast in its fabrication, foldable and affordable in cost. It is an open source design conceived for the many rather than for the few. Why this project? The SUNSEEKER is the result of consciously and critically examining the current models and paradigms of transportation and the necessity to devise alternatives that allow social-oriented transportation using technologies suitable for the conditions of a new world.
The project makes use of simple technical elements that put into reach an alternative of commuting for a wide population. It is energy efficient, environmentally necessary and in terms of price, offers something much affordable than conventional transport options.
You can see further details of the project at www.sunseeker-diy.com
Categoría de tu proyecto
Consumo/Producción colaborativa
Cómo se diferencia tu producto o servicio de lo existente en el mercado?
What it is proposed here is not a product in usual economic sense because in opposition to this ideological conception, the objective of this project is to utilise other industrial design praxis rather than just theorise or dream about doing so. The aim is to challenge and rethink the concept of product. The project is designed, by ensuring it is freely accessible, to develop outside the mainstream logic of the market; moreover, it aims is to promote a technical knowledge that could offer options for energy self-sufficiency and mobility. It also offers, a more convenient, cleaner, secure and affordable mode of transportation, offering a real alternative for the majority of people that can’t access the “solutions” posed by the market. Thus, unlike most products, it aims to be accessible to all, shared without monetary gain or other superfluous interest, and encourages participation by user, rather than simple consumption. It is paramount that the concept spread using open source and public open design practices were the authorship of the design is shared between an unlimited number of people, so that design, redesign and improvements to the original concept are made , bringing it into a new state of development more sophisticated. As the design has been realised using computer aided design, CAD tools will be shared for free on internet portals such as: open source ecology, Grab-cad, google-docs, Facebook and others that facilitate free public access to the design. Those interested in the project will have access to detailed and complete information about the design schemes and plans, construction procedure and a simple guide explaining how the electronics work. This gives people the information they need to be able to perform modifications, upgrades or simply reinterpret the concept for their context and economic conditions. The only condition for sharing or redesign the SUNSEEKER is that any new designs be shared with free public access. You can see the further details of the project at www.sunseeker-diy.com
Describe el impacto social que genera tu solución
In the times to come designers can and must play a significant role in relevant economic, political, and social issues rather than just be servants of the elite that control and hold the wealth and the means of production. I’d argue, that it would be impossible to achieve this objective if the design imperative is profitability at all cost rather than actually meeting basic human necessities. Based on this perspective this project is grounded in a Human-centred approach, were the achievement of Social well-being and sustainable livelihood are paramount driving the whole concept; hence, the project’s focus on underserved and disadvantaged lower income communities which amount to most of the human population. The implementation of the sun seeker system in a particular community aims to generate transformational changes by helping develops technical environments embedded with sustainable technologies which could lead to local development and the instauration of self-developing and sustainable micro-economies as a core proposal of the project. This challenges the model of welfarism and charity increasingly used now days, as another corporate strategy to generate new markets and consumers for products that people actually don’t need. The project encompasses tree main civilizational issues: transportation, energy production and access to the means of production, therefore its importance and transcendence to generate equality, freedom, access and the right of mobility.
Descripción breve de la sustentabilidad económica de tu proyecto
This project could have for sources of funding: 1 community funding, 2 crowdfunding 3 government loan, or 4 private loan. Working in conjunction as a system, the mobile Solar caption system (sunseeker) and the energy station (CES) have the potential to gather substantial quantities of solar energy that would be collected through an internal battery system and the excess would be put straightaway into the public grid, so the community would be energy self-reliant. There is also the possibility to sell the energy gathered by the system to ensure its maintenance and to pay for the money borrowed if that is the case. A community that have access to a commuting service that does not depend on petrol or external energy sources would save huge amounts of money in the short term and this would add value to the whole equation.
¿Cómo es la escala de tu proyecto?¿Zonal, regional, nacional o globlal? ¿Por qué?
This Project is conceived to be establish initially in a zonal scale, but could also work in a regional or national scale. It is necessary to find a pilot community with an ongoing self-organizational process that facilitates a consultation process among its members. This is necessary because one of the main aims of the project is precisely to strengthen those processes by giving a solution that would be managed entirely by the community.
¿En qué etapa se encuentra tu proyecto?
Prototipo
¿Tu emprendimiento se encuentra constituído en algún país?¿Cuál?
not at the moment
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jajejijoju
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hace 9 años
As you can see (if you read my project) I'm not selling anything neither I'm claiming to be an entrepreneur, what I'm doing here is proposing a possible alternative that is addressing 3 things: commuting, energy production and access to the means of production. The whole project relies in the actual market, or how do you think I'm gonna get the aluminium, the solar panels and the lithium batteries?
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hace 9 años
G'day Camilo thanks for your question. Im tempted to think you haven't read my project otherwise you wouldn't been asking this. I cordially invite you to have a look at http://www.sunseeker-diy.com so you can have a better understanding of my proposal, specially if you are a "mentor". Regarding your question about the logic of the market this would require more than 500 words to explain it to you. When you say "we don`t like that" I hope you are just teasing me because that is not an argument .
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hace 9 años
What do you mean by "develop outside the mainstream logic of the market"? Regarding funding: 1 community funding (this is charity, we don`t like that, it has no scale) 2 crowdfunding (Ok, but LATAM is not used to do crowdfunding) 3 government loan (how will you pay back the loan if you have no sales? or 4 private loan (who will invest in you if you don`t have a market view of your project and many of your proposal is anti-market?) Good luck with your project
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hace 9 años
Felicitaciones por su idea; como periodista he estado en contacto con varias iniciativas que quieren impactar sobre el medioambiente desde diferentes frentes, construir productos a partir de material no biodegradable (muebles, obras de arte, etc) y también a partir de tecnológias alternativas. Debe existir más gente y empresa como ustedes, con conciencia ambiental.
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hace 10 años