Relight
Reimagining Streetlights for Accessibility
The Dream
My goal is to make an affordable kit that individuals, neighborhood associations, or small local governments could buy, and use it to assemble streetlights with very little technical knowledge. Ideally, it would be shipable or aquireable all over the world, though I'm not yet sure how to make that part possible.
Challenges of Getting a Street Lit
Price
The clearest barrier to streetlighting is price; it turns out they're really expensive! One streetlight can cost on average between $2,000 and $3,000 USD, not counting the cost of electricity and maintenance. Multiply that by the number of lights it takes to light a decent portion of the street, and it adds up quickly for small communities.
My goal is to make a streetlight that will cover around half the area of a standard street light, while costing 98% less.
One of the biggest things I learned from my interview with Jeff Goode is that getting streetlights up through government channels takes a really long time. It's been months since the HOA contacted the local government about putting up streetlights, and they still haven't gotten a solid answer about what the upkeep cost will be, forget actually getting the lights!
With my model, a community could ideally order and assemble a streetlight within a few weeks of the initial purchase.
Time
Current Progress and Design
I am currently working on two designs for bases. One that would work on solid ground such as pavement, and another to work on softer ground like dirt or sand. At first, I wanted to make three, with one for uneven ground that you couldn't dig into, but this was complicated enough that I decided to come back to it later, if it was needed at all.
At first, I wanted to make a fixed base out of PVC pipes, but very early on I realized that it just wouldn't be stable enough. My basic idea now for the solid-ground design is to have a base, such as a classic 5-gallon bucket, with the post held in place by some amount of concrete. I am still waiting on the resources that I need to play around with this, so I have paused on this one right now to work on my other design.
For the soft-ground base design, I'm working on making a way of securing tent stakes to the pole. I tried this as an early prototype just by using duct tape, hot glue, and zip ties, but it fell apart pretty quickly. I used a 3D molding software to design a piece specifically to fit the dimensions I am working with, but underestimated how much room I needed to give, so ended up with something way too small. I then got two more, one that was 5% bigger, and one that was 10% bigger. Both of them were way too big for the PVC pipe and too small for the tent stakes, so I had to go back to the drawing board. My fourth one was also a tiny bit too small for the tent stakes, so right now, I'm working on version five.
