With most of us living in countries where running electricity and water is commonplace, it would be hard for us to imagine what it might be like living in countries where the supply of electricity might not be as stable, which means getting access to a decent light source at night could be tricky. Martin Riddiford and Jim Reeves from London have recently come up with an invention dubbed the GravityLight, a device that uses gravity to power a lamp and that will only cost $5 to purchase. The project was launched on Indiegogo but has since surpassed its goal by more than 500% with 21 days left.
The GravityLight is basically an LED bulb packaged in a housing, and by attaching a bag that comes with the lamp, all the user would have to do is fill the bag with about 20 pounds of dirt or rocks and let gravity do its work. According to its creators, this would be enough to generate about 30 minutes worth of power after which they’d just have to repeat the process again to keep the light turned on. The initial batch of 1,000 GravityLights will be distributed for free to villagers in Africa and India, whereby its creators claim these villagers will be able to save money by not having to buy kerosene-powered lamps.
Based on the initial feedback, the lamp will then be tweaked and they will seek NGOs and non-profit organizations in helping to distribute the GravityLight on a wider scale. In fact you can actually do your part by contributing to its Indiegogo project where your donations could help buy some GravityLights which will be sent to needy villages. In the meantime you can get more information from its Indiegogo page or you can check out the video below.
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