A group of Industrial Design students from Brigham Young University partnered with European students from Budapest and London to help create a mobile light prototype.
Ember, a multi-colored lantern which runs for 10 hours on a rechargeable battery, can be taken on hikes, trips or be added to decorate homes.
“We wanted to design our light to be reminiscent of a campfire,” Aislynn Edwards, a member of the BYU team told BYU-Idaho Radio. “When initially turned on, the color is red then it slowly gets brighter until it reaches a bright white light for clear visibility.”
Edwards said there are no buttons on the outside of the lantern, so to turn on the light the top must be physically turned.
She said they wanted to create something that’s usable and stands out from the crowd of camping lights.
“We wanted to create a light that’s more than just a light,” Edwards said. “We wanted it to be a center piece and to let the users have an emotional connection to it.”
The project was sponsored by Utah-based retail Company, Black Diamond. The company focuses on selling equipment for climbing, skiing, camping and other outdoor activities.
The students also worked with European Global Product Realization a course taught by BYU professor Bryan Howell.
The multi-disciplinary team who created Ember consisted of five BYU students, one student from Budapest, and two students from London.
“It was a really cool once in a lifetime experience to actually go over to London and meet the people that we’ve been working with and make it (Ember) together,” Edwards said.
Edwards said one of the biggest challenges they all had to work through was working internationally and coordinating times to talk to each other.
“We would either have to wake up really early our time, or we would have to have a late Skype call as well,” Edwards said. “It was very interesting because we were working with engineers but because they were so far away we had to send them files or sketches and then we had to wait for them to reply back, so it was really interesting working across seas.”
However, Edwards said this has been a great experience, especially for a student.
“Usually we do a lot of projects but they usually don’t get taken into really becoming a product,” Edwards said. “It was a lot of fun to work with everyone and to be able to go from an idea and into an actual project.”