During the Engineering Brightness experience we learned a lot about the people in the Dominican Republic and how they live, and we really wanted to do something to help whether it was fundraising, documenting or even building the lights to help them.

At the beginning of this experience we got into groups and I am in a group with my partner. The first thing we did is we started trying to create a new design for the lights. We planned on using solar power and LED lights and we contacted a company that we found called Liter of light which is a company that builds light used wit solar power. Liter of light used plastic bottles and locally sourced materials to peoples homes businesses and streets that cannot afford electricity and Liter of Light has installed more than 350,000 bottle lights in more than 15 countries. We contacted Nico from Liter of Light and he sent us their designs for their bottle lights and we were very grateful to see that we could get ideas from the designs.

Later on during the Engineering Brightness experience we started focusing more on fundraising because we felt that we would be able to help more in that area. We recently contacted Eladio from the Dominican Republic to help us with our idea, we planned on making a video about the Dominican Republic and we asked Eladio if he could sent us some footage of people in the Dominican Republic being interviewed about how they live and what problems light poverty has caused them. We are currently still waiting for Eladio to send the footage to us but we hope we get it soon to make the video.

During Engineering Brightness we learned a lot during our first Skype chat with the students and teachers in the Dominican Republic because they explained what was currently going on in the Dominican Republic, most people only had about three to four hours of light during the day and when they didn’t have power they would used kerosene lamps that had a high chance of catching on fire and burning down their home. They also told us about the sugar cane fields were some people have to work as payed slaves. After the Skype chat we worked more in our groups working on the Engineering Brightness projects and I learned how to contact people and companies and I learned how to work better in groups and contribute more to what we are doing.

I thing I could have worked I a bit harder on this project because I feel like I haven’t done as much as I could have, but I thing that what I did do well with was getting along with my partner and we both communicated very well with each other and manged to contact a few different people. I thing that this was a very cool and interesting experience because we got to help the people in the Dominican Republic and we got to connect with different people that are around our age.

  • https://www.google.ca/search?q=liter+of+light&biw=1366&bih=631&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwiqgJL3pc_RAhXLqlQKHRCABEkQ_AUIBigB#imgrc=-2kCgJb6IkNMUM%3A
  • https://www.google.ca/search?q=liter+of+light&biw=1366&bih=631&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwiqgJL3pc_RAhXLqlQKHRCABEkQ_AUIBigB#imgrc=3NQyQuj4fvx5kM%3A