Darshana

A low cost projector to facilitate

education
 Darshana - A low cost projector to facilitate education

The ability to produce a desired education system in India is as

diverse as its people. The local governments and their policies have
created a issues to disseminate quality primary education to the
poorest segments of the society.
There were some key issues we observed :
1. Bringing educated teachers to the villages and even more remote
areas was challenge.
2. The remuneration and quality of life it offered to them as a
compensation was not seen as good enough motivation.
3. Uninterrupted supply of electricity was a challenge. It was often tough
to have digital classrooms that could be independent of the grid and
connectivity.
4. Digital education material is costly and hence could not be used by
most small institutions.
5. Repair was often expensive too, or had to be taken to a nearby city to
be fixed.
Idea
▪ What if we could use the high density of mobile repair shops to help build,
maintain and fix new digital tools?
▪ What if we created a platform for sharing digital resources in classrooms that
could make teachers better facilitators and help children gain from the vast
resource of visualized concepts?
▪ What if we designed a product entirely from locally sourced electronic parts
that could overcome the familiar challenges of transportability, durability and
how it consumed electricity?
 Design
▪ The box was fitted with a
small USB 2.0 port to
enable data input.
▪ Since it is a 4G phone, the
projector had data
connectivity and the touch
screen of the phone was
used as trackpad for
navigation.
▪ The phone memory could
also be used to copy data
onto it freeing the USB
port.
▪ The metaphor of a lunch box really worked here as it was small, compact and
easily transportable.
▪ Few accessories like a tripod and remote which were also used to enhance the
features of the projector.
▪ The designed product can be carried in one of their bags for fieldworkers and
teachers.
Testing & Tweaks
This prototype was tested in some remote tribal schools in the Nilgiris’
mountain sides and realised to modify certain things:
❏ The ambient light outside sometimes made the projection not very clear. We had to enhance this.
❏ Ambient surrounding sounds in cityscapes or even rural areas meant that the speakers that we
used were not good enough.
❏ Children were often excited about seeing videos and that created a lot of a excited noises too.
❏ The sound had to be enhanced too.
❏ The touch screen and the speakers, exposed as they were, was a weak point for the durability.
Thank You