Recent Excitement

Aug 15, 2008 03:11 pm 2 Comments

For those of you whom are wondering what the heck I have been up to with POWERleap in the recent weeks I don’t blame you!  I've had some very exciting leads but nothing that I can exactly disclose in public yet (hence the very vague photo of my beautiful city).  I can, although, give you a couple hints to get you excited.

I have been speaking a couple men from the Chicago offices of an international architecture firm.  Their spectacular office is on the 36th floor of a Mies van der Rohe building downtown on the north canal.  We have been in discussion of possibly pushing the research forward through the budget of a large project they are doing with a domestic university.  This opportunity has required me to go back to my research and my calculator and apply the POWERleap technology to the project in order to come up with corresponding numbers on power generation and budget.  These numbers have been both thrilling and scary- you can probably guess which adjective goes with which calculation. This week, the project has been proposed to the design team where which they showed off the POWERleap prototype and sold the idea! Next, we will take the proposal to the clients and pitch the idea of powering part of the structure through human energy!  This will happen before the end of the month. Wish us luck!

This morning, after I picked up the tiles from the international firm, I schlepped them over to a smaller yet very impressive firm downtown.  This firm has been commissioned by a building and design magazine to conceptualize a virtual city for them through which they will program into a gaming element for designers and innovators to navigate and experience on the web.  The virtual city is meant to be a glimpse into an efficient, sustainable, future city that could be implemented today. POWERleap will be embedded in all walkways, highways, and pedestrian bridges of the city.  I set up the prototype in their offices for both the firm reps. and the magazine reps. to touch, feel, learn, and walk on.  The presentation led our conversation in many directions, one that could lead to an exciting exhibition design collaboration for GreenBuild this November in Boston.

Looking forward, next week I present get to present POWERleap to the Chicago IDEO offices.  This is a rescheduled presentation from the July 3 meeting I had to forfeit due to terrible highway traffic. My action plan for the meeting is to present my development to date, sell the idea and the product and gain some design and engineering support from their local team.

Ill let you know how it goes!
 

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Guest
August 16, 2008 - 7:35am

Tell us more, Elizabeth :) Good luck! Can't wait to hear more.

earthday78
August 16, 2008 - 4:15pm

Excited for you! I admire your passion and persistence! If you need help, ask "us" and you might receive, i know how hard it is to do alone....but getting it done none-the-less, Goal to global green! Keep me updated and thanks again for your support!! Mike Davis

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